Under the day’s crust a half-eaten child

And further sores which eyesight shall reveal

And they live. But what of dark elders

Whose touch at nightfall must now be

To keep their promise? Misery

Starches the host’s one bed, his hand

Falls like an axe on her curls:

“Come in, come in! Better that the winter

Blaze unseen, than we two sleep apart!”

Who in their old age will often part

From single sleep at the murmur

Of acerb revels under the hill;

Whose children couple as the earth crumbles,

In vanity forever going down

A sunlit road, for his love was strongest

Who never loved them at all, and his stiff tune

Most civil, laughing not to return.