I heard a strain of music in the street--
    A wandering waif of sound. And then straightway
    A nameless desolation filled the day.
The great green earth that had been fair and sweet,
Seemed but a tomb; the life I thought replete
    With joy, grew lonely for a vanished May.
    Forgotten sorrows resurrected lay
Like bleaching skeletons about my feet.

Above me stretched the silent, suffering sky,
    Dumb with vast anguish for departed suns
       That brutal Time to nothingness has hurled.
The daylight was as sad as smiles that lie
    Upon the wistful, unkissed mouths of nuns,
       And I stood prisoned in an awful world.