I looked around, and as close as touch
Was everybody that suffered much.
They reached out, there was darkness only;
They could not see us, they were lonely.
I saw the hearts that deaths took hold of,
With the wounds bare that were not told of;
Hearts with things in them making gashes;
Hearts that were choked with their dreams' ashes;
Women in front of the rolled-back air,
Looking at their breasts and nothing there;
Good men wasting and trapped in hells;
Hurt lads shivering with the fare-thee-wells.
I saw them as if something bound them;
I stood there but my heart went round them.
I begged him not to let me see them wasted.
Says, "Tell them then what you have tasted."
Told him I was weak as a rained-on bee;
Told him I was lost. — Says: "Lean on me."
Something happened then I could not tell,
But I knew I had the water for every hell.