In agony—could I have made
My song of Furies were the bane
Still sap within the hemlock stalk,
The red swords virgin bright again?
Or take a child’s love that is all
Worship, all tenderness and trust,
A dawn-web, dewy and fragile—take
And with the violence of lust
Tear and defile it. You shall hear
The breaking dumbness and the thin