Now all day long the man who is not
Hastens the dark with inattentive eyes,
The woman with white hand and erect
Stares at the covers, leans for the son's
At last to her importunate womanhood-Her hand of death laid on the living bed;
So lives the fierce compositor of blood.
She waits; he lies upon the bed of
Where greed, avarice, anger writhed and
Till to their silence they were gathered in:
There, fallen with time, his tall and bitter
Once fired the passions that were never
In the permanent heart, and there his mother
To bear him on the impenetrable day.
The falcon mother cannot will her
Up to the bed, nor break the
His exile sets upon her harsh
That he should say the time is beautiful-Transfigured by her own possessing light:
The sick man craves the impalpable night.
Loosed betwixt eye and lid, the swimming
Of memory, blind school of cuttlefish,
Rise to the air, plunge to the cold streams-Rising and plunging the half-forgotten
To tear his heart out in a slow
And freeze the hue of terror to her face.
Hate, misery, and fear beat off his
To the dry fury of the woman's mind;
The son, prone in his autumn, moves apartA seed blown upon a returning wind.
O child, be vigilant till towards the
On the flowered wall all the sweet afternoon,
The reaching sun, swift as the cottonmouth,
Strikes at the black crucifix on her
Where the cold dusk comes suddenly to rest-Mortality will speak the victor soon!
The dreary flies, lazy and casual,
Stick to the ceiling, buzz along the wall.
O heart, the spider shuffles from the
Weaving, between the pinks and grapes, his pall.
The bright wallpaper, imperishably old,
Uncurls and flutters, it will never fall.
