XXV

As I wandered over the city through the night,

I saw many strange things:

But I have forgotten all

Except one painted face.

Gaudy, shameless night-orchid,

Heavy, flushed, sticky with narcotic perfume,

There was something in you which made me prefer you

Above all the feeble forget-me-nots of the world.

You were neither burnt out nor pallid,

There was plain, coarse, vulgar meaning in every line of you

And no make-believe:

You were at least alive,

When all the rest were but puppets of the night.