Time Enough at Last* (Poem 32)

Mr. Henry Bemis,
his shattered glasses gleam like shattered dreams
in the wake of broken buildings
and scattered reams,

Mr. Henry Bemis,
his books are tinder now it seems,
fuel for fires, if he has time for fires
or for dreams.

We cannot envy Mr. Bemis,
but may pause to wonder
if circumstances have changed.

The books he read were dead before
the world was silent and defaced.

The ink was conversation,
but he read only for dry consumption
the morsels of Dickens and Baudelaire.

Now, his armchair,
another a place of isolation
in a world far from fair.

* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FUI90HIQt8