Here they lie ready, as though what were still
needful were that some action be invented
whereby with one another and this chill
they might become united and contented;
for all is still as though without conclusion.
What names, we’d like to know, may have been found
inside their pockets? All this disillusion
about their mouths has been washed round and round:
it didn’t go; it merely came quite clean.
Their beards are left them, just a bit less pendant,
but tidier, as it seems to be attendant,
so that the starers shan’t be disconcerted.
The eyes beneath their eyelids have averted
their gaze from outwardness to that within.