Within,a coldly echoing floor:a terror
Of narrow,naked walls,whitened and ghastly,
Through whose grim hollowness,faint and incessant,
Is heard a murmuring horror of fires communing.
What flesh and blood,what hands and face,what beauty
Shrivels beneath the touch of flames caressing—
Becomes obliterate in this awful furnace?
What life dwelt in this formless heap of ashes
Drawn forth,—the fires subdued,the furnace opened,—
To inhabit yon dead vault of icy marble,
Under the day,dwelling in its own darkness,
Under the world,shrouded in its own silence?
What eye shall read this shadowy inscription?
What hand upon this cold thing lay its cypress?
What lip shall touch the silent vase of ashes?
The body,the human body divine,burning.
Without,warm flood of universal sunshine;
And a white butterfly, hovering,soaring,ascending…