Page:The city of dreadful night - and other poems (IA cityofdreadfulni00thomrich).pdf/84

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His face was pale to give one fear,
His eyes when lifted looked too bright;
He muttered; what, I could not hear:
Bad words though; something was not right.

VIII.

The table said, He wrote so long

That I grew weary of his weight;
The pen kept up a cricket song,
It ran and ran at such a rate:
And in the longer pauses he
With both his folded arms downpressed,
And stared as one who does not see,
Or sank his head upon his breast.

IX.

The fire-grate said, I am as cold

As if I never had a blaze;
The few dead cinders here I hold,
I held unburned for days and days.
Last night he made them flare; but still
What good did all his writing do?
Among my ashes curl and thrill
Thin ghosts of all those papers too.