“Boy killed on Bicycle”; smallest print, four lines
Islanded in a tossing sea of type,
Four lines, but how they surge, gather, expand,
And thunder in her hears! Monstrous headlines
Outfaced, sink downward, dwindle and recede
Like angry voices through a closing door.
Four toneless lines; and yet for her the trumpet
That tongues the toppling world; and from that fall
(Who doubts?) shall echoes shake those furthest vaults
Of heaven’s inane where hand the constellations
Like cities in the boundless plain of space;
And waves, crossing the voiceless sea that laps
The utmost bastions of infinity,
Shall beat against them till they shift and waver
Like hills in haze, because this thing has been.
For this shall turrets tumble and go down
To desolation that withstood, unmoved,
Flood, earthquake, fire, the molten clash of planets,
The stir of nations, and the death of kings.