what's o'clock
113
With dreams and slumber as each chose to come—
This, he would think, was sure philosophy,
Proper to please the minds of dry old men
Outgrown of creeds and fallals, seeing far
Beyond the hazards itching younger folk
With livelier arteries, whose dumb-bell heads
Were crowned with donkeys' ears. Old bones are wise
And undisturbed by any hum of flesh;
He knew this with a wizened irony.
Weighing the world and life against his bones,
He tipped the scales down heavily, he thought,
And so was satisfied. His cackling laugh
Piped to the rats and hanging spiders' webs
And smothered in the muffle of decay.
The wine of his conceit was very old
And heady; like a drug, it ran beneath
His skin and flushed his veins so that they stood
Out on him like blue worms. A queer old man,
Building content with each new creaking thought
This, he would think, was sure philosophy,
Proper to please the minds of dry old men
Outgrown of creeds and fallals, seeing far
Beyond the hazards itching younger folk
With livelier arteries, whose dumb-bell heads
Were crowned with donkeys' ears. Old bones are wise
And undisturbed by any hum of flesh;
He knew this with a wizened irony.
Weighing the world and life against his bones,
He tipped the scales down heavily, he thought,
And so was satisfied. His cackling laugh
Piped to the rats and hanging spiders' webs
And smothered in the muffle of decay.
The wine of his conceit was very old
And heady; like a drug, it ran beneath
His skin and flushed his veins so that they stood
Out on him like blue worms. A queer old man,
Building content with each new creaking thought
