And we sharpen our wits up with passions for hones,

Melt down loadstars for magnets, use women for whetstones,

Learn to bear with dead calms by remembering cyclones,

Snap strings short with sharp thumbnails, till silence begets tones,

Burn our souls out, shift spirits, turn skins and change zones;

V

Then the heart, when all's done with, wakes, whimpers, intones

Some lost fragment of tune it thought sweet ere it grew sick;

(Is it life that disclaims this, or death that disowns?)

Mere dead metal, scrawled bars—ah, one touch, you make music!

Love's worth saving, youth doubts, but experience depones.

[Pg 394]

VI

In the darkness (right Dickens) of Tom-All-Alone's

Or the Morgue out in Paris, where tragedy centuples

Life's effects by Death's algebra, Shakespeare (Malone's)

Might have said sleep was murdered—new scholiasts have sent you pills

To purge text of him! Bread? give me—Scotticè—scones!

VII

Think, what use, when youth's saddle galls bay's back or roan's,

 Prev. P 22/49 next