Page:The Statues in the Block and Other Poems (1881).djvu/18

Till one began—harsh voice and clouded face
With other presence in his eye—and said:

"Opaque to me with such a glow-worm ray
As Love's torch flings—but, mark, the dense rock melts
When from my soul on fire the fiercer beam,
The mighty calcium-glare of hate leaps out
And eats the circumambient marble—See!
Laid bare as corpse to keen anatomist,
With every sinuous muscle picked with shadow,
And every feature tense with livid passion,
And all the frame aheave with sanguine throbs
The ecstasy of agonized Revenge!
stone, reveal it how my parting kiss
Was wet upon her mouth when other lips
Drank deep the curséd fountain; how the coin
I hung with rapture 'tween her glowing breasts,
And fondly thought if I should die and she
Should live till age had blanched her hair and flesh,