Of Heaven Considered as a Tomb
Reading edition
What word have you, interpreters, of men Who in the tomb of heaven walk by night, The darkened ghosts of our old comedy? Do they believe they range the gusty cold, With lanterns borne aloft to light the way, Freemen of death, about and still about To find whatever it is they seek? Or does That burial, pillared up each day as porte And spiritous passage into nothingness, Foretell each night the one abysmal night, When the host shall no more wander, nor the light Of the steadfast lanterns creep across the dark? Make hue among the dark comedians, Halloo them in the topmost distances For answer from their icy Elysée.