Our sense of neatness, neutralize
The overtint and oversize.
I think it true that Heaven should be
A narrow train for you and me,
Where we perpetually must haunt
The moving oblique restaurant
And feed on foods of other minds
Behind the hot and dusty blinds.
THAÏS IN HEAVEN
WHEN you lay dying fast, you said—
And, weeping, were not comforted:
“Look through this paper world! I see
The lights of Heaven burn like gold
The other side; and Souls are sold
For these, yet only flesh, sold we!”
And then you died and went to bliss.—
I’m curious now to know if love
Is really Heaven—where you rove.—
Your kind of love ... or mine, Thaïs?
And is there still the clinging mud?
I think it drowned your soul like wine.
And do the stars like street-lamps shine,
Gilding the gutters where you stood,
And lighting up your small face where
Thin powder, like a trail of dust,
Shows the mortality of lust ...
Still black as hissing rain, your hair?