Still, I could give them up!” he mused and sighed

Like a poor scrawny gust of city wind,

“But it’s the precedent that’s bad! You’ll find

Things worse Hereafter ... I’d a friend who died.

And ... well, damned souls had never much to tell....

But now they’ve stopped the Lethe, down in Hell!”

MORTUARY PARLORS

The smooth, unobtrusive walls say “Hush!” in a voice of honey and meal,

The refined and comforting chairs protest that sorrow may be genteel,

They are all hiding the dead away, they are huddling them off to forget....