Hunger
(To Emerson Withorne)
BREAK me no bread however white it be;It cannot fill the emptiness I know;No wine can cool this desert thirst in meThough it had lain a thousand years in snow;No swooning lotus flower’s languid juiceDrips anodyne unto my restlessness,And impotent to win me to a truceIs every artifice of loveliness.Inevitable is the way I go,False-faced amid a pageant permeateWith bliss, yet visioning a higher waveThan this weak ripple washing to and fro;The fool still keeps his dreams inviolateTill their virginity espouse the grave.