I am the stage, impassive, mute and cold,
That thrills not where the actor's foot hath trod.
My alabaster halls, my emerald
Stairs, and my tones were sculptured by a god:
Your voice of crying I know not, no, nor see
The passing of the human comedy
That looks to heaven to find its period.

I roll, and to my deep disdain I thrust
The seed of ants and human populations;
Their tenements I know not from their dust,
Their names I know not—I that bear the nations;
Mother in name, in deed a very room
For death; my winter takes its hecatomb,
My spring is careless of your adorations.

Before you, always essenced, always fair,
I shook my locks abroad the winds of heaven,
And trod my customary path in air,
While the divine hands held the balance even:
And onward, to that void where all things roll
I shall be carried silently and sole,
And by my breast and brows the airs be riven.