Page:Captain Craig; a book of poems.djvu/38

The world and the whole planetary circus
Were a flourish of apple-blossoms. Look at her!
Lilies and roses! Butterflies! Great Scott!
And here is this infernal world of ours—
And hers, if only she might find it out—
Starving and shrieking, sickening, suppurating,
Whirling to God knows where . . . But look at her!
Confucius, how she rides! And by Saint Satan,
She's galloping over to talk with us, woman and horse
All ours! But look—just look at her!—By Jove!' . . .

"And after that it came about somehow,
Almost as if the Fates were killing time,
That she, the spendthrift of a thousand joys,
Rode in her turn with me, and in her turn
Made observations: 'Now there goes a man,'
She said, 'who feeds his very soul on poison:
No matter what he does, or where he looks,
He finds unhappiness; or, if he fails
To find it, he creates it, and then hugs it:
Pygmalion again for all the world—
Pygmalion gone wrong. You know I think
If when that precious animal was young,
His mother, or some watchful aunt of his,