Poems (Henley)/Vigil
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VII VIGIL
Lived on one's back,In the long hours of repose,Life is a practical nightmare—Hideous asleep or awake.
Shoulders and loinsAche - - -!Ache, and the mattress,Run into boulders and hummocks,Glows like a kiln, while the bedclothes—Tumbling, importunate, daft—Ramble and roll, and the gas,Screwed to its lowermost,An inevitable atom of light,Haunts, and a stertorous sleeperSnores me to hate and despair.
All the old timeSurges malignant before me; Old voices, old kisses, old songsBlossom derisive about me;While the new daysPass me in endless procession:A pageant of shadowsSilently, leeringly wendingOn . . . and still on . . . still on!
Far in the stillness a catLanguishes loudly. A cinderFalls, and the shadowsLurch to the leap of the flame. The next man to meTurns with a moan; and the snorer,The drug like a rope at his throat,Gasps, gurgles, snorts himself free, as the night-nurse,Noiseless and strange,Her bull's eye half-lanterned in apron(Whispering me, 'Are ye no sleepin' yet?'),Passes, list-slippered and peering,Round . . . and is gone.
Sleep comes at last—Sleep full of dreams and misgivings— Broken with brutal and sordidVoices and sounds that impose on me,Ere I can wake to it,The unnatural, intolerable day.