EARLIER POEMS
Only that he has never heard of sleep,
And when the cats come out the rats are sly,
Here we are safe till he slinks in at dawn.
But he has gnawed a fibre from strange roots,
And in the morning some pale wonder ceases.
Things are not strange; and strange things are forgetful.
Ah! If the day were arid, somehow lost
Out of us; but it is as hair of us,
And only in the hush no wind stirs it,
And in the light vague trouble lifts and breathes,
And restlessness still shadows the lost ways.
The fingers shut on voices that pass through
Where blind farewells are taken easily.
Ah, this miasma of a rotting God!
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