Page:Poems by Isaac Rosenberg (1922).djvu/76

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POEMS BY ISAAC ROSENBERG

What shoulder pushed through those mists
Of gay fantastic pastimes
And startled hills of sleep?

[He looks in a mirror.]

Oh, apparition of me,
Ruddy flesh soon hueless,
Fade and show to my eyes
The lasting bare body;
Soul-sack fall away
And show what you hold!
Sing! Let me hear you sing.

A Voice

[Sings.]
Upon my lips, like a cloud
To burst on the peaks of light,
Sit cowled impossible things
To tie my hands at their prime and height.
Power, break through their shroud;
Pierce them so thoroughly,
Thoroughly enter me,
Know me for one dead;
Break the shadowy thread,
The cowering spirit's bond
Writ by illusions blond!

Ah! Let the morning pale

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