Meru

Civilisation is hooped together, brought / Under a rule, under the semblance of peace / By manifold illusion; but man's life is thought, / And he, despite his terror, cannot cease / Ravening through century after century, / Ravening, raging, and uprooting that he may come / Into the desolation of reality: / Egypt and Greece, good-bye, and good-bye, Rome! / Hermits upon Mount Meru or Everest, / Cavemed in night under the drifted snow, / Or where that snow and winter’s dreadful blast / Beat down upon their naked bodies, know / That day brings round the night, that before dawn / His glory and his monuments are gone.