A smell of dead limes quickens in the nose
The leprosy of empire.
‘Farewell, green fields,
Farewell, ye happy groves!'
Marble like Greece, like Faulkner's South in stone,
Deciduous beauty prospered and is gone,
But where the lawn breaks in a rash of trees
A spade below dead leaves will ring the bone
Of some dead animal or human thing
Fallen from evil days, from evil times.
It seems that the original crops were limes
Grown in that silt that clogs the river's skirt;The imperious rakes are gone, their bright girls gone,
The river flows, obliterating hurt.
I climbed a wall with the grille ironwork
Of exiled craftsmen protecting that great house
From guilt, perhaps, but not from the worm's rent
The river is filled with pain and awful memories.  Painful to even look at.  Although it may seem like a peaceful river flowing, the river has seen dark times. A river should be peaceful.  The writer uses imagery when he speaks about the river.  However, this river is not peaceful to him, Walcott wonders if there are dead bodies in this river, bodies of slaves… 

Ruins of a Great House