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In the Room.
75

XX.

They get to know each other well,

To feel at home and settled down;
Death bursts among them like a shell,
And strews them over all the town.
The bed went on, This man who lies
Upon me now is stark and cold;
He will not any more arise,
And do the things he did of old.

XXI.

But we shall have short peace or rest;

For soon up here will come a rout,
And nail him in a queer long chest,
And carry him like luggage out.
They will be muffled all in black,
And whisper much, and sigh and weep:
But he will never more come back,
And some one else in me must sleep.

XXII.

Thereon a little phial shrilled,

Here empty on the chair I lie:
I heard one say, as I was filled,
With half of this a man would die.