(1869 - 1910 / United States)  What do you think this poem is
about?  The Quarry  Between the rice swamps and the fields of
tea I met a sacred elephant, snow-white. Upon his back a huge
pagoda towered Full of brass gods and food of sacrifice. Upon
his forehead sat a golden throne, The massy metal twisted into
shapes Grotesque, antediluvian, such as move In myth or have
their broken images Sealed in the stony middle of the hills. A
peacock spread his thousand dyes to screen The yellow sunlight
from the head of one Who sat upon the throne, clad stiff with
gems, Heirlooms of dynasties of buried kings,-- Himself the
likeness of a buried king, With frozen gesture and unfocused
eyes. The trappings of the beast were over-scrawled With
broideries--sea-shapes and flying things, Fan-trees and dwarfed
nodosities of pine, Mixed with old alphabets, and faded lore
Fallen from ecstatic mouths before the Flood, Or gathered by the
daughters when they walked Eastward in Eden with the Sons of God
Whom love and the deep moon mad