School on the Outskirts

From New Poems (1916).

How different, in the middle of snows, the great school rises red!
A red rock silent and shadowless, clung round with clusters of shouting lads,
Some few dark-cleaving the doorway, souls that cling as the souls of the dead
In stupor persist at the gates of life, obstinate dark monads.

This new red rock in a waste of white rises against the day
With shelter now, and with blandishment, since the winds have had their way
And laid the desert horrific of silence and snow on the world of mankind,
School now is the rock in this weary land the winter burns and makes blind.