The Stepwise Palace - a FSVO sequence
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Figure D19 MÉLANGE

Not long that darkened future we disturb
But climb a stair down to a furnace-room
Whose coal is not of ancient buried herb
But refuse of long ages, in the womb
Of stone compressed: the midden-heap, the tomb,
The factory, the spaceship-yard, the cell.
Glowing red and giving off a fume
Kaleidoscopic, insolent and fell,
As if the sins of Earth were gathered in a smell.