On Certain Verses
By George Sterling
No sense of an horizon, No ray of sun or star: Here a sick soul went groping In deserts hushed and far. In this mirage of ashes The sight was turned within, Where shadow hid in shadow And worlds were leached and thin. A skeleton here gelded Of laughter and of lust Points to the hieroglyphics Of snake-prints in the dust. Sunken from wind and music, One hears, afar from light, The drip of cryptic waters In caverns hard with night.