“They flock together like ants, hurry east and west, run north and south. Some are mighty, some humble. Some are aged, some young. They have places to go, houses to return to. At night they sleep, in the morning get up. But what does all this activity mean? There is no ending to their greed for long life, their grasping for for profit.”

Part I
The City of Dreadful Night (1870–74)

From Bitter Grounds
Fragile Things (2006)

"The Superstitions of Fred Anneday, Annday, Anday; a Novel of Real Life" (1935)
How Writing Is Written: Previously Uncollected Writings, vol.II (1974)

By the Waters of Babylon (1937)
Context: The north and the west and the south are good hunting ground, but it is forbidden to go east. It is forbidden to go to any of the Dead Places except to search for metal and then he who touches the metal must be a priest or the son of a priest. Afterwards, both the man and the metal must be purified. These are the rules and the laws; they are well made. It is forbidden to cross the great river and look upon the place that was the Place of the Gods — this is most strictly forbidden. We do not even say its name though we know its name. It is there that spirits live, and demons — it is there that there are the ashes of the Great Burning. These things are forbidden — they have been forbidden since the beginning of time.

Source: Poems from the Pickering Manuscript (c. 1805), Auguries of Innocence, Line 123
Source: Songs of Experience

First Week, Second Day. Compare: "From north to south, from east to west", William Shakespeare, A Winter's Tale, act i. sc. 2.
La Semaine; ou, Création du monde (1578)

"In my life"
Lyrics

Source: Henry Rios series of novels, The Burning Plain (1997), p.282 (Chapter 21)

Source: Haunted