Not through the chalk soils of Picardy
but through mounds of the bodies of the slain,
Charles Howard Bury digs, and digging,
comes upon a pilgrim from Lhasa, moving

one body length at a time towards Kathmandu
in ritual prostration, beside whose body
Charles Howard Bury lays the bodies of the slain,
his own body, in the chalk soils of Picardy.