By Stephen Spender
After the funeral, mule carts, draped with white or black
(On this route there are always funerals) came and went.
In the empty field, the mules let the ropes slack.
The express that I came on raced like a torrent.
With steam-like breath and dark steam-funnelled smoke.
There is little to hold on to except to a hope
However far the journey that you came on it may seem,
At the end you will get off. But there was no hope left,
Only the child's enormous primitive scream
From where they carried it into the dim tunnel
Like they carried the coffin before. That voice.
Still gathering the power of its own release,
Would yet annihilate evil with the ultimate scream.
This I knew: and I thought of the powers of darkness:
How necessary it is for everyman to seem
As though he never doubted: and for some
For those to whom it really matters—who cannot cheat,
The eye's simplicity to make a true judgment;
The clear eye that, even in despair, inspects:
The way in the express across a great swamp
Of steaming marsh; but you cannot cross on foot.
And the train ran on into night and snow and steam;
As though we travelled into the mind's own dream;
The place you must reach and yet must never reach.