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Three phases: before it was, when it was, and
now, in my sight: sterile and rigid, while blood
tracks down as down some rocky mountain-side
the head itself, the hair like the falling mists.
Deepening in the peering eyes, my eyes that know
its depth is indefinable: something harder
than diamond, pressed back in the coal of human evil,
depth beyond depth, in the rancour of the lonely heart.
A king emerges, a billow of softness over the interval:
the broken nose, the bronze lip, the blood the cracks
of some stabbed Dorian Gray; the great features consigned
along a chapter-less course: before, when, and now.
Who could demand these things be set aright?
And who could cry aloud when it spoke once more! |
