For nations vague as weed,

For nomads among stones,

Small-statured cross-faced tribes

And cobble-close families

In mill-towns on dark mornings

Life is slow dying.

So are their separate ways

Of building, benediction,

Measuring love and money

Ways of slowly dying.

The day spent hunting pig

Or holding a garden-party,

Hours giving evidence

Or birth, advance

On death equally slowly.

And saying so to some

Means nothing; others it leaves

Nothing to be said.