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From “Two Designs”
LUST is the oldest lion of them all | |
| And he shall have first place; | |
| With a malignant growl satirical | |
| To curve in foliations prodigal | |
| Round and around his face, | 5 |
| Extending till the echoes interlace | |
| With Pride and Prudence, two cranes gaunt and tall. | |
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| Four lesser lions crouch and malign the cranes. | |
| Cursing and gossiping, they shake their manes, | |
| While from their long tongues leak | 10 |
| Drops of thin venom as they speak: | |
| The cranes, unmoved, peck grapes and grains | |
| From a huge cornucopia, which rains | |
| A plenteous meal from its antique | |
| Interior, a note quite curiously Greek. | 15 |
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| And nine long serpents twist | |
| And twine, twist and twine— | |
| A riotously beautiful design | |
| Whose elements consist | |
| Of eloquent spirals, fair and fine, | 20 |
| Embracing cranes and lions, who exist | |
| Seemingly free, yet tangled in that living vine. | |
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| And in this chest shall be | |
| Two cubic metres of space, | |
| Enough to hold all memory | 25 |
| Of you and me….. | |
| And this shall be the place | |
| Where silence shall embrace | |
| Our bodies, and obliterate the trace | |
| Our souls made on the purity | 30 |
Of night…..
Now lock the chest, for we | |
| Are dead, and lose the key! | |
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