looking at these forlorn things that I wanted to cry out, but could not,
because I was dead. Then I knew, as I had never known before, that for all
the years that herd of desolate houses had wanted to cry out too, but,
being dead, were dumb. And I knew then that it had yet been well with the
forgotten drifting things if they had wept, but they were eyeless and
without life. And I, too, tried to weep, but there were no tears in my
dead eyes. And I knew then that the river might have cared for us, might
have caressed us, might have sung to us, but he swept broadly onwards,
thinking of nothing but the princely ships.

At last the tide did what the river would not, and came and covered me
over, and my soul had rest in the green water, and rejoiced and believed
that it had the Burial of the Sea. But with the ebb the water fell again,
and left me alone again with the callous mud among the forgotten things
that drift no more, and with the sight of all those desolate houses, and
with the knowledge among all of us that each was dead.

In the mournful wall behind me, hung with green weeds, forsaken of the
sea, dark tunnels appeared, and secret narrow passages that were clamped
and barred. From these at last the stealthy rats came down to nibble me
away, and my soul rejoiced thereat and believed that he would be free
perforce from the accursed bones to which burial was refused. Very soon
the rats ran away a little space and whispered among themselves. They
never came any more. When I found that I was accursed even among the rats
I tried to weep again.

Then the tide came swinging back and covered the dreadful mud, and hid the
desolate houses, and soothed the forgotten things, and my soul had ease
for a while in the sepulture of the sea. And then the tide forsook me
again.