III

There was a man whom I knew well

Whose choice it was to live in hell;

Reason there was why that was so

But what it was I do not know.

He had a room high in a tower,

And sat there drinking hour by hour,

Drinking, drinking all alone

With candles and a wall of stone.

Now and then he sobered down,

And stayed a night with me in town.

If he found me with a crowd,

He shrank and did not speak aloud.

He sat in a corner silently,

And others of the company

Would note his curious face and eye,

His twitching face and timid eye.

When they saw the eye he had

They thought, perhaps, that he was mad:

I knew he was clear and sane

But had a horror in his brain.

He had much money and one friend

And drank quite grimly to the end.

Why he chose to die in hell

I did not ask, he did not tell.