Waiting for dusk and someone dear to come and whip him down the street, gently home.

For only with your help shall They come to see–and with no more Than average daily terror– All things for what they are, All things for what they are.

If he could sleep on it. He would make his bed with white sheets And disappear into the white, Like a man diving, If he could be certain That the light Would not keep him awake, The light that reaches To the bottom.

Now comes the evening of the mind. Here are the fireflies twitching in the blood.

Nostalgias were peeled from it long ago.

How shall I speak of Doom, and ours in special, But as of something altogether common?

The artist will have had his revenge for being made to wait, A revenge not only necessary but right and clever-- Simply to leave him out of the scene forever.

Men at forty Learn to close softly The doors to rooms they will not be Coming back to.

There is no way to ease the burden. The voyage leads on from harm to harm, A land of others and of silence.

Soon the purple dark must bruise Lily and bleeding-heart and rose, And the little Cupid lose Eyes and ears and chin and nose