This poem is taken from PN Review 36, Volume 10 Number 4, March - April 1984.
The Ornamental Hermits
Veiled melancholy, mid-lay accidie,
Improvings of the landskip sheathed in rain:
We dwell, not live, shifting from knee to knee
In robes as uncanonical as plain,
Nodding, like Homer, over knucklebones,
(Cold vertebrae a starwork on the floor)
Serviced by birdsong: vespers, compline, nones -
The cycles of unalterable law.
...
Improvings of the landskip sheathed in rain:
We dwell, not live, shifting from knee to knee
In robes as uncanonical as plain,
Nodding, like Homer, over knucklebones,
(Cold vertebrae a starwork on the floor)
Serviced by birdsong: vespers, compline, nones -
The cycles of unalterable law.
...
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