The Final Church

In the moonlight
By the sea
In a country
In a town
Now quickly
Now slowly
Now in pain
Now in love
In different shapes
When I was young
When I was young
I used to dream
And the wind blows
And the owl sings
And dogs are driven wild
And dogs break their chains
And run through the lands
A prey to madness
With wild eyes dying
Wild eyes burning
They raise their heads
They swell their cold necks
Like a hungry child's breath
Or a cat who's ripped its guts
Like a woman about to give birth
Like a young girl singing
At the stars in the north
At the stars in the south
At the stars in the west
At the stars in the east
At the moon
At the mountains
At the rocks
At the pain
At the thief
At the snakes
Reveal their black black backs
Fresh flesh
Glazed eyes stare
From long pale human faces
We cannot satisfy the hopes
We are now dead
We are all dead
The hammer breaks the anvil
From the cleft of its hood
It was fair as morning
And full of heaven dew
Then it put on darkness
Declined its softness
And put on the symptoms
Of its sickly age
It bowed its head
It broke its stalk
It lost its leaves
And all its beauty
Falling to weeds
And unknown faces
The same is the portion
Of man and woman
The black heritage
Of worms and serpents
And rottenness
And cold discharge
Our beauty is now so changed, my friends
By violence
And secret infuence
The aspect of a star
By the stink of a mist
By emissions of a cloud
The meeting of vapours
By the fall of a chariot
The stumbling at stones
By a full meal
Or an empty stomach
By watching at the wine
Or by watching at prayers
Or the sun and the moon
By a heat or a cold
By sleepless nights
Or sleeping days
By water frozen
To the hardness of a dagger
Or water thawed
Into the floods of a river
By a hair or a current
By violent motion
By sitting still
By severity
Or dissolution
By God's mercy
Or God's anger
We take pains to heap up things useful to our life
And we get our death in the bargain
And the person is snatched away
And the goods remain
And all this is the law and constitution of Nature Unveiled
It is a punishment to our sins
The unalterable event of Providence
And the decree of Heaven