Despair

You who made me
With first ecstasy
When I was sown,
And lovely things at night
I will not write
And burdened moan,
While veiny labyrinths with mystery ran
Till time and blood were life
And I began—
By holier things than God,
Or any other shibboleth of man,
Dead woman wan,
By the thin, silver scream that winter morn
In the dim, shuttered room where I was born,
Be gone!

Haunt me no more, Shroud Trailer,
Go to bed.
For the swift, golden wings I owe to you
Flap in the dust like some loose, common shoe;
Stay dead, stay dead!
I fear your glimmering bust in utter air,
The transparent eyes with shadowy stare,
The sleepy, sleepy scent of flowers
And the long hands—
They fill me with despair.

Touch me no more at night.
Borrow no form for me
Of sound or sight;
For all my days are spent by cluttered streams,
Distracted by a thousand things and faces,
And all unuttered die great dreams
Among the stagnant places.
I am not what you gave your life to buy,
And God knows what I shall be by and by!
The motes of habit sift down grain by grain,
Till I am what I am in heart and brain,
So young—so old—
Death keep you, darling,
Deaf and blind and cold.