With ribbons of ticker-tape, so all the peaks
Are caught in cobwebs...
Rolls the sound along
Like some tempestuous Te Deum played on the great pipes of the town
By multi-fingered Chaos pulling blindly at the stops.
The ships that lie in the harbor—daubed sea-cockles
With grotesque bodies and gray guns poking overside—
Blow their white breath into the blue air
And swell the sonorous choir. No more they need go twisting
Through wreck-strewn waters, or run with smothered ports,
Hugging the darkness, cursing the moon in God's hand,
Dreading the phosphorus that burns their bows
As a necklace burns a woman's throat—
None gladder than the ships,
None more joyful than the ships,
That pen has scratched paper in the hushed railway carriage
In the great Forest at Compiègne yonder....