In Death Valley

There came gray stretches of volcanic plains, 
Bare, lone and treeless, then a bleak lone hill
Like to the dolorous hill that Dobell saw. 
Around were heaps of ruins piled between 
The Burn o’ Sorrow and the Water o’ Care; 
And from the stillness of the down-crushed walls
One pillar rose up dark against the moon. 
There was a nameless Presence everywhere; 
In the gray soil there was a purple stain, 
And the gray reticent rocks were dyed with blood—
Blood of a vast unknown Calamity. 
It was the mark of some ancestral grief—
Grief that began before the ancient Flood.