TWO MORE MUSES
When this amusing planet is bereft of me,
They will depart who made my noonshine night;
The dwarfed and crippled wizard to the left of me,
And the enormous lady on my right!
The lovely largeness thinks of silver sandals,
Pale marbles swallowed up in yellow rain,
Dear ruffians dicing long beneath blurred candles,
Romance and thunder and the Spanish Main.
But, as she pours each sparkling hope before me,
His ivory eyes unstopper just a chink,
And, low remarking “too much sweet might bore me!”
He slips a painted acid in the drink,
Which I must taste, intolerably bitter,
Sauterne and quinine, saccharine and gall,
And try to please than both when death were fitter,
And never have my true desire at all!
So chained we sit—until I leave the human—
And I shall praise old Skullface, if he can
But rid me of that smooth and comely woman,
And the small, laughing, devil-twisted man!