Sleep, sleep, with thy broken keys
Till Pilate wash his hands -
The time is cracked and memory flees
Bright afternoons of other lands.

What were thy once-tuned strings,
Childhood and fluting boy? -
Mornings of swift protecting wings,
Noons flecked with joy.

Blindly the hunter bat the twilight scours
In the dark enclosure of the Square;
Green fissured bronze rings out the hours -
The crowding ghosts halt on the stair.

Barbarian night creeps on the town.
The Councillors sit late.
Tiresias has rent his gown,
And the sentries closed the gate.