Now that the last shreds of tobacco
die at your gesture in the crystal bowl,
to the ceiling slowly

Two boards with a token roof, backed
Against the shelving hill, and a curtain
Of frayed sacking which the wind absently

My luckless lady needs no sheet of sun
Nor winter’s briskest word
   To stir her now.

Love in a maze destroyed his force
Regretting free and sunny days.
He mastered compass, chart and course

And he shall not be narrow or be numb
But shall command his hostages of fear,
He who has bowed his neck to enter here

It is the star above us makes us see
The distance of the firmament, immensity
Of the green wave that swells beneath the dark.

The silly fish deceived him
As he approached the creel:
He thought the whole thing real

Lictor or heavy slave would wear it best,
The robe of uncapricious Emperor,
Waging a profitable war, at least

Trussed in Christianity
Like some stretched fowl upon a spit,
His oil of kindness turned to bile,

when out walked I
down fell the sky,
a backward boom