The Deep-Sea Cables

by Rudyard Kipling

The wrecks dissolve above us; their dust drops down from afar,
Down to the dark, to the utter dark, where the blind white sea-snakes are.
There is no sound, no echo of sound, in the deserts of the deep,
Or the great grey level plains of ooze where the shell-burred cables creep.
 
Here in the womb of the world, here on the tie-ribs of earth
 Words, and the words of men, flicker and flutter and beat,
Warning, sorrow and gain, salutation and mirth,
 For a Power troubles the Still that has neither voice nor feet.
 
They have wakened the timeless Things; they have killed their father Time;
 Joining hands in the gloom, a league from the last of the sun.
Hush! Men talk to-day o'er the waste of the ultimate slime,
 And a new Word runs between: whispering, "Let us be one!"