Never to Reach the Oblivious Dark

Never to reach the oblivious dark / And not to know / Any man's troubles nor your own- / Negatives impress negation,

Empty of light and find the darkness lit- / Never is nightmare, / Never flows out from the wound of sleep / Staining the broken brain / With knowledge that no use and nothing worth

Still's vain to argue after death; / No use to run your head against the wall / To find a sweet blankness in the blood and shell, / This pus runs deep.

There's poison in your red wine, drinker,

Which spreads down to the dregs / Leaving a corrupted vein of colour, / Sawdust beneath the skirts; / On every hand the evil's positive / For dead or live,

Froth or a moment's movement / All hold the sum, nothing to nothing, / Even the words are nothing / While the sun's turned to salt, / Can be but vanity, such an old cry,

Nothing never, nothing older / Though we're consumed by loves and doubts.

I love and doubt, it's vain, it's vain, / Loving and doubting like one who is to die / Planning what's good, though it's but winter,

When spring is come, / The jonquil and the trumpet.