Feasts

I drink the gall of skies in autumn, tuberoses'

Sweet bitterness in your betrayals burning stream;

I drink the gall of nights, of crowded parties' noises,

Of sobbing virgin verse, and of a throbbing dream.

We fiends of studious fight a battle everlasting

Against our daily bread - can't stand the sober mood.

The troubled wind of nights is merely a toastmaster

Whose toasts, as like as not, will do no one much good.

Heredity and death are our guests at table.

A quiet dawn will paint bright-red the tops of trees.

An anapaest, like mice, will on the bread-plate scrabble,

And Cinderella will rush in to change her dress.

The floors have all been swept, and everything is dainty,

And like a child's sweet kiss, breathes quietly my verse,

And Cinderella flees-by cab on days of plenty,

And on shanks' pony when the last small coin is lost.