The Suicide
1
I CAME away from a sodden grave
Feeling I had no soul to save:
Only I shivered chill and faint
Already with the graveyard taint.
2
From myself I seemed to shrink:
Of the coming end I would not think:
But I wandered all adread
In a dream of being dead.
3
The wind rose up against the moon
With a ghoulish whisper: Soon, soon!
While over the dim November town
Like a black opal night came down.
4
All unavailing I had come
To a widespread city slum:
A yellow blur thro' darkness seen,
Gashed with infernal red and green.
5
It was a most polluted zone
Of crumbling brick and grimy stone,
Where evil mouldered old and dank,
And thugs and thieves and harlots drank.
6
Nightlong its streets were doomed to be
Lurid lanes of infamy;
Made for denizens who dwell
Fitly in the stews of Hell.
7
Yet to its first saloon I fled
For the feel of liquor in my head:
For the warm, slow, low release
Of stupor in the stead of peace.
8
One drink — then shuddering I withdrew
From the poor, besotted crew:
Better the aura of despair
Than any reeking solace there.
9
From myself I seemed to shrink:
Of the coming end I would not think:
But still I wandered all adread
In a dream of being dead.
10
The wind rose up against the moon
With a ghoulish whisper: Soon, soon!
While over the dim November town
Like a black opal night came down.
11
By a church I stood of an age agone,
And its gothic portals gazed upon:
Grim saints there hailed the Crucified:
A painted girl was by my side.
12
Glint o' the moon on window-pane:
Garnet and gold where the Lamb was slain:
But dark and silent all within:
And we without like shades of sin.
13
The painted girl made low moan,
Leaning against the carven stone,
Then turned to me with doubtful stare:
A hood fell back from her raven hair.
14
What heart I had went out to her
Because her eyes were sinister,
And wan disease and poverty
Dispoiled a face still fair to see.
15
As we were in some vaulted aisle,
In low tones we talked awhile:
We talked as those before the dead:
Something of this I mind she said:
16
" Once with my baby I came here:
Once in the young, enchanted year:
The leaves were little and green with spring,
And here we came for the christening.
17
" That was a time when I could bless
Everything in my happiness:
Then blackness came, and burial —
And I lost all, and all, and all.
18
" Now every day that dawns for me
Weighs me down with misery: —
But come to-night and be my friend:
To-night for me may be the end. "
19
Then thro' alternate glare and gloom
I followed her to an attic room:
A candle there was to see it by —
God, 'twas a drear place to die!
20
Tho' I had bought upon the way
Good rum to deaden our dismay,
Yet still I shivered chill and faint
Already with the graveyard taint.
21
The rum was on the table set
When she drew from her breast an amulet,
And there fell in her hand, as she touched a spring,
A powder white and glistening.
22
" Friend, I am weary of my years!
Of the strain and pain and useless tears!
This little powder is so full of sleep —
Take it — and wake no more to weep!
23
" You, I know, won't stay my hand!
You go my way — you understand! "
Then on the rum the powder gleamed:
Swift she drank it; soon she dreamed.
24
Awhile she told a tale to me
Of a strange lover, absently:
Awhile she muttered of a child
From her side by Death beguiled.
25
Then she had a fancy sweet
Of rambling thro' a field of wheat
Where flaming scarlet poppies grew:
And the sun sank low; and the sky was blue.
26
With closing eyes, and drooping head,
I lifted her to the mean bed,
And white and quiet there she lay —
Already she was on her way.
27
Something I found of the powder lit
Upon her glass; I drank from it:
Filled it again and yet again —
Reeled, and sank beside her then.
28
Thro' the long night as she had died
The painted girl lay by my side:
In the grey of dawn by a creaking stair
I crept away and left her there.
I CAME away from a sodden grave
Feeling I had no soul to save:
Only I shivered chill and faint
Already with the graveyard taint.
2
From myself I seemed to shrink:
Of the coming end I would not think:
But I wandered all adread
In a dream of being dead.
3
The wind rose up against the moon
With a ghoulish whisper: Soon, soon!
While over the dim November town
Like a black opal night came down.
4
All unavailing I had come
To a widespread city slum:
A yellow blur thro' darkness seen,
Gashed with infernal red and green.
5
It was a most polluted zone
Of crumbling brick and grimy stone,
Where evil mouldered old and dank,
And thugs and thieves and harlots drank.
6
Nightlong its streets were doomed to be
Lurid lanes of infamy;
Made for denizens who dwell
Fitly in the stews of Hell.
7
Yet to its first saloon I fled
For the feel of liquor in my head:
For the warm, slow, low release
Of stupor in the stead of peace.
8
One drink — then shuddering I withdrew
From the poor, besotted crew:
Better the aura of despair
Than any reeking solace there.
9
From myself I seemed to shrink:
Of the coming end I would not think:
But still I wandered all adread
In a dream of being dead.
10
The wind rose up against the moon
With a ghoulish whisper: Soon, soon!
While over the dim November town
Like a black opal night came down.
11
By a church I stood of an age agone,
And its gothic portals gazed upon:
Grim saints there hailed the Crucified:
A painted girl was by my side.
12
Glint o' the moon on window-pane:
Garnet and gold where the Lamb was slain:
But dark and silent all within:
And we without like shades of sin.
13
The painted girl made low moan,
Leaning against the carven stone,
Then turned to me with doubtful stare:
A hood fell back from her raven hair.
14
What heart I had went out to her
Because her eyes were sinister,
And wan disease and poverty
Dispoiled a face still fair to see.
15
As we were in some vaulted aisle,
In low tones we talked awhile:
We talked as those before the dead:
Something of this I mind she said:
16
" Once with my baby I came here:
Once in the young, enchanted year:
The leaves were little and green with spring,
And here we came for the christening.
17
" That was a time when I could bless
Everything in my happiness:
Then blackness came, and burial —
And I lost all, and all, and all.
18
" Now every day that dawns for me
Weighs me down with misery: —
But come to-night and be my friend:
To-night for me may be the end. "
19
Then thro' alternate glare and gloom
I followed her to an attic room:
A candle there was to see it by —
God, 'twas a drear place to die!
20
Tho' I had bought upon the way
Good rum to deaden our dismay,
Yet still I shivered chill and faint
Already with the graveyard taint.
21
The rum was on the table set
When she drew from her breast an amulet,
And there fell in her hand, as she touched a spring,
A powder white and glistening.
22
" Friend, I am weary of my years!
Of the strain and pain and useless tears!
This little powder is so full of sleep —
Take it — and wake no more to weep!
23
" You, I know, won't stay my hand!
You go my way — you understand! "
Then on the rum the powder gleamed:
Swift she drank it; soon she dreamed.
24
Awhile she told a tale to me
Of a strange lover, absently:
Awhile she muttered of a child
From her side by Death beguiled.
25
Then she had a fancy sweet
Of rambling thro' a field of wheat
Where flaming scarlet poppies grew:
And the sun sank low; and the sky was blue.
26
With closing eyes, and drooping head,
I lifted her to the mean bed,
And white and quiet there she lay —
Already she was on her way.
27
Something I found of the powder lit
Upon her glass; I drank from it:
Filled it again and yet again —
Reeled, and sank beside her then.
28
Thro' the long night as she had died
The painted girl lay by my side:
In the grey of dawn by a creaking stair
I crept away and left her there.
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