'
* * * * *
By many hands the work of God is done,
Swart toil, pale thought, flushed dream, he spurneth none:
Yea! and the weaver of a little rhyme
Is seen his worker in his own full time.
THE DECADENT TO HIS SOUL
The Decadent was speaking to his soul--
Poor useless thing, he said,
Why did God burden me with such as thou?
The body were enough,
The body gives me all.
The soul's a sort of sentimental wife
That prays and whimpers of the higher life,
Objects to latch-keys, and bewails the old,
The dear old days, of passion and of dream,
When life was a blank canvas, yet untouched
Of the great painter Sin.
Yet, little soul, thou hast fine eyes,
And knowest fine airy motions,
Hast a voice--
Why wilt thou so devote them to the church?
His face grew strangely sweet--
As when a toad smiles.
He dreamed of a new sin:
An incest 'twixt the body and the soul.
He drugged his soul, and in a house of sin
She played all she remembered out of heaven
For him to kiss and clip by.
He took a little harlot in his hands,
And she made all his veins like boiling oil,
Then that grave organ made them cool again.
Pages:
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61