(Creeping mysteriously out of the twilight, draped in a complex.)
THE CHARNEL BIRD
Forslin murmurs a melodious impropriety
Musing on birds and women dead æons ago....
Was he not, once, this fowl, a gay bird in society?
Can any one tell?... After an evening out, who can know?
Perhaps Cleopatra, lush in her inadequate wrappings,
Lifted him once to her tatbebs.... Perhaps Helen of Troy
Found him more live than her Paris ... a bird among dead ones....
Perhaps Semiramis ... once ... in a pink unnamable joy * * *