This is the bridge where at dusk they hear voices

far out in the meres and marshes or they say they hear voices

the bridge shakes and no one else is crossing at this hour

somewhere along here is where they hear voices

this is the only bridge though it keeps changing

from which some always say they hear voices

the sounds pronounce an older utterance out of the shadows

sometimes stifled sometimes carried from clear voices

what can be recognized in the archaic syllables

frightens many and tells others not to fear voices

travellers crossing the bridge have forgotten where they were going

in a passage between the remote and the near voices

there is a tale by now of a bridge a long time before this one

already old before the speech of our day and the mere voices

when the Goths were leaving their last kingdom in Scythia

they could feel the bridge shaking under their voices

the bank and the first spans are soon lost to sight

there seemed no end to the horses carts people and all their voices

in the mists at dusk the whole bridge sank under them

into the meres and marshes leaving nothing but their voices

they are still speaking the language of their last kingdom

that no one remembers who now hears their voices

whatever translates from those rags of sound

persuades some who hear them that they are familiar voices

grandparents never seen ancestors in their childhoods

now along the present bridge they sound like dear voices

some may have spoken in my own name in an earlier language

when last they drew breath in the kingdom of their voices