52
ALTYN
By a thousand mattocks, robbed of its golden teeth,
Looks down with a crooked smile and leers at Altyn;
When hollow moon is hooked among the pines,
The lobo, squat on a carcass, lifts his head
And quavers a melancholy requiem—
Where clanking skeletons of mining-rig
And darkly looming winch are silhouetted
Against the moon, like gibbets dangling the ghosts
Of once high dreams of Altyn.
Looks down with a crooked smile and leers at Altyn;
When hollow moon is hooked among the pines,
The lobo, squat on a carcass, lifts his head
And quavers a melancholy requiem—
Where clanking skeletons of mining-rig
And darkly looming winch are silhouetted
Against the moon, like gibbets dangling the ghosts
Of once high dreams of Altyn.
Nothing remains
Of the world's most wicked city; nothing remains,
Except a solitary grave that rambles
With clematis, and mallows salmon-red,
Planted by McElroy's fast-rotting fingers,
Patterned about by skulls of buffalos—
Dark-socketed tenements of drowsy bees
And darting centipedes; and girdling the mound,
Like a bulwark against the world, a wall of stone,
Painfully quarried, painfully hewn, and lifted
Painfully into place by bleeding hands;
And on the hillock, within this miniature
Of the world's most wicked city; nothing remains,
Except a solitary grave that rambles
With clematis, and mallows salmon-red,
Planted by McElroy's fast-rotting fingers,
Patterned about by skulls of buffalos—
Dark-socketed tenements of drowsy bees
And darting centipedes; and girdling the mound,
Like a bulwark against the world, a wall of stone,
Painfully quarried, painfully hewn, and lifted
Painfully into place by bleeding hands;
And on the hillock, within this miniature
