We are affrighted now to think: we fear
That noise, the people, in the wind-washed bushes;
Our endless childhood has a cavernous ear,
It is no rainfall splashing quoits-that’s clear!—
It is a sound within the house we hear,-
The headline breaks, and out a nation gushes.
And bugles’ clouds like giant mushrooms blow
Along the golden airways down the mind:
Out of our house oblivion’s billows flow,-
The mills of the gods grind slowly, but not so
The appalling world upon the radio
Pouring its iron tides upon mankind.
And now, now, the machine now cannot stop
Exploding brimstone on the music’s stair;
The earth is filling, filling to the top,
No room now for the cyclops in the shop
Nor elsewhere at the gargoyle curtain drop
Of faces headlong on the final air.
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