Page:The city of dreadful night - and other poems (IA cityofdreadfulni00thomrich).pdf/90

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The man there drank me with slow breath,
And murmured, Thus ends barren strife:
O sweeter, thou cold wine of death,
Than ever sweet warm wine of life.

XXIII.

One of my cousins long ago,

A little thing, the mirror said,
Was carried to a couch to show,
Whether a man was really dead.
Two great improvements marked the case:
He did not blur her with his breath,
His many-wrinkled, twitching face
Was smooth old ivory: verdict, Death.—

XXIV.

It lay, the lowest thing there, lulled

Sweet-sleep-like in corruption's truce;
The form whose purpose was annulled,
While all the other shapes meant use.
It lay, the he become now it,
Unconscious of the deep disgrace,
Unanxious how its parts might flit
Through what new forms in time and space.