There were no men and women then at all

But the flesh lying alone,

And angry shadows fighting on a wall

Which now and then sent out a groan

Stifled in lime and stone,

And sweated now and then like tortured wood

Big drops that looked yet did not look like blood.

And yet as each drop came a shadow faded

And left the wall

There was a lull

Until another in its shadow arrayed it,

Came, fought and left a blood-mark on the wall.

And that was all; the blood was all.

If women had been there they might have wept

For the poor blood, unowned, unwanted,

Blank as forgotten script.

The wall was haunted

By mute maternal presences whose sighing

Fluttered the fighting shadows and shook the wall

As if that fury of death itself were dying.