Words fall, words fail, like rocks, like falling stones;

Out of the towered clouds and the dark air,

Words fail, and a tree of blackness falls:

There is nothing at all to surrender or defend.

It was a grim castle, built in the bad years,

Built by an old man after years of failure,

Stuccoed with long complacency, and now

No more than an empty wineskin or a crushed fruit.

From the dark earth, the tree broke out, and men

Died with a frantic zeal, and spitting death:

Who knows what it was they died for?

Their bones are a dust, and their names forgotten.

Suburbs creep up the hill, and the trams are running,

Children find ghostly playmates in the ruins;

The sun glares on the emptiness, and vanished walls

Burn with a bitter death and unfulfilled perfection.

Stamp out the memory of old wars and lost causes:

Build a grave citadel of peace, or a tower of death:

The castle stands, inhuman, incorruptible,

Like a film before the eyes, or a mad vision.