Here, where the people chiefly are resigned
To doubting all the words their leaders use
(Mass-graves that hold forgotten hopes), they find
Loss interposed between them and the light,
Immense and still, unshaken by the wind.
A statesman, now turned conjuror, twirls a bright
Tangle of ribbons from an empty hat:
Official commentators watch the rite,
Haruspicating thus the drift of state.
The serpent hangs with fork-tongued malediction
Over their cities. Radio towers create
Within a Cyclopean eye’s constriction