POEMS BY ISAAC ROSENBERG
Man is a chimera's eremite,
That lures him from the good kindness of days
Which only ask his willingness.
There is a crazed shadow from no golden body
That poisons at the core
What smiles may stray:
It mixes with all God-ancestralled essences,
And twists the brain and heart.
This shadow sits in the texture of Saul's being,
Mauling your love and beauty with its lies:
I hold a power like light to shrivel it—
There, in your throat's hollow—that green jade.
[He snatches at it as she lets it fall. He grows white and troubled, and walks to where Amak is playing, and sees minutely strewn pieces of paper.]
[He mutters.] Lost—lost.
The child has torn the scroll in it,
And half is away. It cannot be spelt now.
Lilith
God, restore me his love.
Ah! Well!
[She rises.]
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