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.