Classic Poem

MacLeish goes up the
Stair built by the ancestors.
Night.
Sea-suck under in the well of stone.
Rat-smell. Silence.
to the door
Where all
O my prophetic soul
Shall be revenged, where I shall speak.
The streak of light along the floor.
The shining on the promised sill.
Look now! I will! The door swings
Open.
 And go in …

Now might I do it pat …
Silence.
The candle fat upon the chair.
The false equation on the obscene wall.
And look and there is no one there!

Giggle of the wind along
The empty gutters of the sky.
Snigger of the faint stars. Catcalls.

And look behind the broken chair.
And look along the shadow on the
Wall. Rat turds. Spiders.

There was no one ever there!
And hear within the hollow room
The clock tick Hurry. And behold
Our eyes grow older in the glass.

What is it that we have to do?