An ode for Paula Dobri­an­sky, John Baird, and all the other nihilists in Bali who press on toward a “triumph where all things falter.”

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A For­saken Garden
Alger­non Charles Swinburne

In a coign of the cliff between low­land and high­land,
At the sea-down’s edge between wind­ward and lee,
Walled round with rocks as an inland island,
The ghost of a garden fronts the sea.
A girdle of brush­wood and thorn encloses
The steep square slope of the blos­som­less bed
Where the weeds that grew green from the graves of its roses
Now lie dead.