Yes--I feel rather better. Man's life is a mull, at the best;
And the patent perturbator pills are like bullets of lead in my chest.
When a man's whole spirit is like the lost Pleiad, a blown-out star,
Is there comfort in Holloway, Bill? is there hope of salvation in Parr?
True, most things work to their end--and an end that the shroud overlaps.
Under lace, under silk, under gold, sir, the skirt of a winding-sheet
flaps--
Which explains, if you think of it, Bill, why I can't, though my soul
thereon broodeth,
Quite make out if I loved Lady Tamar as much as I loved Lady Judith.
Yet her dress was of violet velvet, her hair was hyacinth-hued,
And her ankles--no matter. A face where the music of every mood
Was touched by the tremulous fingers of passionate feeling, and made
Strange melodies, scornful, but sweeter than strings whereon sorrow has
played
To enrapture the hearing of mirth when his garland of blossom and green
Turns to lead on the anguished forehead--"you don't understand what I
mean"?
Well, of course I knew you were stupid--you always were stupid at school--
Now don't say you weren't--but I'm hanged if I thought you were quite
such a fool!
You don't see the point of all this? I was talking of sickness and death--
In that poem I made years ago, I said this--"Love, the flower-time
whose breath
Smells sweet through a summer of kisses and perfumes an autumn of tears
Is sadder at root than a winter--its hopes heavy-hearted like fears.
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