Hostility

PREMISES

HOSTILITY

I have hated heartily enough

my century of fools:

the lady turning life in scented hands

as though it were a fruit to watch the sun upon,

smiling with tiny teeth that never knew a core -

she and more

have exercised the muscles of my hate!

Yet I have not enough for my dead songs,

failing in breath to climb a city's tower,

veiling the tree, leaving no leaf to shine;

and these, so passionately conceived, that cannot keep

even the languor of your hand in sleep!