---

I saw many groups of naked spirits

who were all moaning bitterly: and there seemed to be diverse rules applied to them.

Some were lying face upward on the ground

some sat all crouched:

and others roamed around continuously.

Those who moved were more numerous and those that lay in torment fewer

but uttering louder cries of pain.

Dilated flakes of fire falling slowly

like snow in the windless mountains

rained down over all the vast sands.

Like the flames that Alexander saw falling

in the hot zones of India over all his army

until they reached the ground

fires that were more easily quenched while they were separate

so that his troops took care to trample the earth

like those fell this eternal heat

kindling the sand like tinder beneath flint and steel doubling the pain.

The dance of their tortured hands was never still

now here now there shaking off the fresh burning.