CUERVO - Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia

TOO LATE
Tekel, found wanting, set aside,
Scorned I See, I bleed these tears in the dark
Till comfort come and the last be bled:
He? He is tagging your epitaph.
9
If it would only come over again I
-Time to be patient with me, and probe
This heart till you punctured the proper vein,
Just to learn what blood is: twitch the robe
From that blank lay-figure your fancy draped,
Prick the leathern heart till the-verses spirt I
And late it was easy; late, you walked
\Vhere a friend might meet you; Edith's name
Arose to one's lip if one laughed or talked;
If I heard good news, you heard the same;
When I woke, I knew that your breath escaped;
I could bide my time, keep alive, alert.
10
And alive I shall keep and long, you will see I
I knew a man, was kicked like a dog
From gutter to cesspool; what cared he
So long as he picked from the filth his prog ?
He saw youth, beauty and genius die,
And jollily lived to his hundredth year.
But I will live otherwise: none of such life t
At once I begin as I mean to end.
Go on with the world, get gold in its strife,
Give your spouse the slip and betray your friend I
There are two who decline, a woman and I,
And enjoy our death in the darkness here.
11
I liked that way you had with your curls
·Wound to a ball in a net behind:
Your cheek was chaste as a quaker-girl's,
And your mouth-there was never, to my mind,
Such a funny mouth, for it would not shut;
And the dented chin too-what a chin I
Tbere were certain ways when you spoke, some words
That you know you never could pronounce:
You were thin, however; like a hird's
Your hand seemed-some would say, the pounce
C'f a scaly-footed hawk-all but I
The world was right when it called you tbin.
©Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia
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