Whose number’s
the sum of my sanity;
Whose figures
first count penitence then burn
Fire-wise the
crust of my daily bread;
Whose ear-caught
words that fall from mindless mouths
Repeat, reverberate
and echo still
In these unpupilled
eyes that tutor death.
While the sleepless
child in grave-womb dying
Will loose its
short-lived light in circled-sighs,
Woman, do not
despair such gentle deaths
To which all
loose-limbed lovers lightly pass,
And harbour rage
not in your timid breast,
Where without
sentence lie imprisoned words.
To man these
ruins of unspoken sound,
I call the sentries
from starred turrets down,
That, even if
the voice shall never last,
The centred point
where we return still stands,
And, wanting
in its shade these deathless ghosts,
Be guarded on
the backward-side of life.
