Regio egestatis

Because April is the cruellest month, because I have a lot of work to do, and because there’s no law that bloggers have to be on topic always, here’s a well-known poem:

Funeral portrait from Fayyum (Antikensammlung, Munich)

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.

A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.

Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.