What's O'Clock/Tomb Valley
TOMB VALLEY
Down a cliff-side where rock-roses, Shallow-rooted, scantly bloom, And the mountain goats in passing Barely find a foothold's room, While the boulders of the summit Cast an everlasting gloom.
Leaps a torrent from behind The jutted angle of a wall In a long, unbroken sliding, For it touches not at all Any rock, or stone, or pebble For a thousand feet of fall. For a thousand feet it rushes
Like a heavy, laden air, Playing over some tremendous Sound which surely must be there, For you hear it, lose it, hear it. Does it come from anywhere?
Seething, bubbling, churning, groaning, Has the water in its flight Shattered on the stony bottom Of the valley, while its height Drawing upward like a ribbon Palely grows upon the sight?
But the sound is chiller, deeper, Long and dreary like a moan Caught forever on an echo 'Twixt two balanced shafts of stone, Whence it surges and resurges In protracted monotone.
Far below, within the valley, Runs a river, cold and sleek, Never oar has cut its smoothness, It has shattered on no beak Of shallop or of galley, Its tide is slow and meek.
And the trees within that valley, Of every broad-leaved kind, Wave to and fro compactly, For there's never any wind. Ten thousand branches blowing All one way is hard to find.
And the shadows which their movement Casts upon the sandy ground Are like footsteps weaving dances To that ghastly, haunting sound Ringing round the chilly valley, Round and round and round and round.
Where the river curves about it, And the water lilies strew Silver petals on the pebbles Mingling with dropped cones of yew, Stands a sepulchre of granite Striped with bars of green and blue.
Green and blue bars painted crosswise From its bottom to its crown, At its apex is a statue, Coldly, boldly, gazing down, Gazing fiercely, gazing wildly, Tn an everlasting frown.
And upon its knees a woman Kneels and clasps the granite thighs, And clings upon the roughened stone While tears drop from her eyes. The surly yews wave back and forth Beneath a red moonrise.
And a hollow, draughty moaning Fills the valley like a gong. Women's voices weeping, wailing, All the waving trees among, Where no shapes or shadows flicker But the low moon, broad and long.
Slowly rising from the cliff-tops, Like a gnawed and crumbled cone, It appears in perfect semblance To a sepulchre of stone, And the bars are striped upon it Like cross-sticks of blackened bone.
In a bitter orange moonlight Lies the woman on the knees Of that austere thing of granite, All surrounded by the trees, And the curling, sneering river, And nothing else but these.
On a sudden, she has risen, And with clenched fists beats the face Of that frozen granite horror, And her blows in that drear place Are as thunder-claps resounding Upon vastnesses of space.
For an instant still she batters At that changeless, mocking frown, Then flings her bleeding hands Above her head and plunges down To the smooth and careful river With sere rushes overgrown.
But no ripple marks her entrance To that water, bright as flame, And no pucker stirs the granite face To tell she ever came. The trees blow and the moaning Continues just the same.
But every moonlight night, they say, She drowns herself once more, And by the queasy daylight You can see her from the shore Lying like a lily petal On the river's glassy floor.
So they say, but no one proves it. No one ever ventures in To that valley. Only passers-by Above can hear a thin Weary wailing, if they note it Through the torrent's distant din.
As they wander on the cliff-edge Where the scant rock-roses blow, And the mountain goats go shrewdly In the footways that they know, While the crash of tumbling water Sounds a thousand feet below.