Patience’s skin of snowy white,
Against the peace of blackest night:
A statue to their sin:
The ever-present din.

A party without dawn,
Man: a locust swarm,
Neither hawk or scribe, nor sage,
A day’s meal: the banquet of an age.

From withered age on hairless heads,
And rivers thus to empty beds:
Smiles and frowns in darkness;
As seeds among the waves.

An aged pig, his lake of mud.
Salt and smoke, and iron blood.
Patience’s skin of snowy white,
Against the peace of blackest night.