Between the avenue of cypresses All in their scarlet capes and surplices Of linen, go the chaunting choristers, The priests in gold and black, the villagers. And all along the path to the cemetery The round dark heads of men crowd silently; And the black-scarfed faces of women-folk wistfully Watch at the banner of death, [...]
Men are free when they belong to a living, organic, believing community, active in fulfilling some unfulfilled, perhaps unrealized purpose. Not when they are escaping to some wild west. The most unfree souls go west, and shout of freedom… The shout is a rattling of chains… Liberty in America has meant so far the breaking [...]
Be careful, then, and be gentle about death. For it is hard to die, it is difficult to go through the door, even when it opens. And the poor dead, when they have left the walled and silvery city of the now hopeless body where are they to go, Oh where are they to go? [...]