SICK LOVE

O Love, be fed with apples while you may,

And feel the sun and go in royal array,

A smiling innocent on the heavenly causeway,

Though in what listening horror for the cry

That soars in outer blackness dismally,

The dumb blind beast, the paranoiac fury:

Be warm, enjoy the season, lift your head,

Exquisite in the pulse of tainted blood,

That shivering glory not to be despised.

Take your delight in momentariness,

Walk between dark and dark--a shining space

With the grave's narrowness, though not its peace.

[From Poems 1929 as ‘Between Dark and Dark’ (1929)]