The End Of The Library

When the coal

Gave out, we began

Burning the books, one by one;

First the set

Of Bulwer-Lytton

And then the Walter Scott.

They gave a lot of warmth.

Toward the end, in

February, flames

Consumed the Greek

Tragedians and Baudelaire,

Proust, Robert Burton

And the Po-Chu-i. Ice

Thickened on the sills.

More for the sake of the cat,

We said, than for ourselves,

Who huddled, shivering,

Against the stove

All winter long.