MOTH-EATEN.
It is a stifling night; I sit
With windows open wide;
And the fragrance of the rose is blown
And also the musk outside,
There's plenty of room for the moths out there
In the cool and pleasant gloom;
And yet these mad insectual beasts
Will swarm into my room.
I've thrown so many things at him,
And thrown them all so hard;
There goes the sofa-cushion; that
Missed him by half a yard.
My hot tears rain; my young heart breaks
To see him dodging thus;
It is not right for him to be
So coy—so devious.
As I sit by my duplex lamp,
And write, and write, and write;
They come and drown in the blue-black ink,
Or fry themselves in the light.
They pop, and drop, and flop, and hop,
Like catherine-wheels at play;
And die in pain down the back of my neck
In a most repulsive way.
There's a brown moth on the ceiling. He
Makes slow and bumpy rounds;
Then stops and sucks the whitewash off—
He must have eaten pounds.
He's only waiting for his chance
To take me unaware,
And then the brute will drop, and make
His death-bed in my hair.
Why do they do it? Why—ah! why?
The dews of night are damp,
But the place to dry one's self is not
The chimney of a lamp.
And sultriness engenders thirst,
But the best, the blue-black ink,
Cannot be satisfactory
Regarded as a drink.
They are so very many, and
I am so very few—
They are so hard to hit, and so
Elusive to pursue—
That in the garden I will wait
Until the dawning light,
Until the moths all go by day
Where I wish they'd go by night.
