Classic Poem

Wringing, wringing his pierced hands,
he walks in a wood where once a flood
washed the ground into loose white sand;
and the trees stand each a twisted cross,
smooth and white with loss of leaves and bark,
together like warped yards and masts
of a fleet at anchor centuries.
No blasts come to the hollow of these dead;
long since the water has gone from the stony bed.
No fields and streets for him, his pathway runs
among these skeletons, through these white sands,
wringing, wringing his pierced hands.