In the old times Death was a feverish sleep,

In which men walked. The other world was cold

And thinly-peopled, so life’s emigrants

Came back to mingle with the crowds of earth:

But now great cities are transplanted thither,

Memphis, and Babylon, and either Thebes,

And Priam’s towery town with its one beech.

The dead are most and merriest: so be sure

There will be no more haunting, till their towns