They Carry Terror with Them Like a Purse

They carry terror with them like a purse,
And flinch from the horizon like a gun;
And all the rivers and the railways run
Away from Neighbourhood as from a curse.

They cling and huddle in the new disaster
Like children sent to school, and cry in turn;
For Space has rules they cannot hope to learn,
Time speaks a language they will never master.

We live here. We lie in the Present’s unopened
Sorrow; its limits are what we are.
Ought the prisoner ever to pardon his cell,

Can future ages ever escape so far,
Yet feel derived from everything that happened,
Even from us, that even this was well?