The foot of death is on the earth at last.
Uncomplicated, vast, this motive mass
Opens, spreads itself above the hills,
Then first, as calm as any fact, hangs fire …
Down comes the great-winged, veinéd thing
That beats as a hailstorm up my eyes.
No thunder now can crash behind my calm.
Union of the beast, that seeks consent,
With me, unkempt in visions running off
My skillful eyes, is terrible and done.
The Baptist, witness of his own pale head
Kissed on bloodless, more prophetic lips,
Tipped on a salver by the harrowed girl,
Her thigh touching Herod while she leans:
Apocalypse in the colonies, unwept
By noisome courtiers simping borrowed ground,
His people in the reeds unbathed and calm
(Herodias pulls covers from the bed),
John the Baptist, kissed without his head
In Galilee, has known the beast as I.
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