Leslie Nelson Jennings. Eidolon. Harriet Monroe, ed. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912-22

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22.

Eidolon

By Leslie Nelson Jennings


OF what use are windows?
I have seen too much.
Of what use are the shapes of my illusion?—
I have called things by too many names.

These curtains I will draw;	5
These candles I will extinguish.
One moon or two moons—
It makes no matter.
There is neither saffron nor samite,
Nor the whiteness of dead hands.	10

Of what use compassion?
Of what use these candles by the face of darkness?
Pity me not, for I am pitiless …
The image you would have me break
We dreamed.	15