Deep Sea Cables

by Rudyard Kipling

　　

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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!'

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