Page:Collected poems vol 1 de la mare.djvu/70

 DARK lean face, a narrow, slanting eye, Whose deeps of blackness one pale taper's beam Haunts with a fitting madness of desire; A heart whose cinder at the breath of passion Glows to a momentary core of heat Almost beyond indifference to endure: So parched Iago frets his life away. His scorn works ever in a brain whose wit This world hath fools too many and gross to seek. Ever to live incredibly alone, Masked, shivering, deadly, with a simple Moor Of idiot gravity, and one pale flower Whose chill would quench in everlasting peace His soul's unmeasured flame — O paradox! Might he but learn the trick! — to wear her heart One fragile hour of heedless innocence, And then, farewell, and the incessant grave. "O fool! O villain!" — 'tis the shuttlecock Wit never leaves at rest. It is his fate To be a needle in a world of hay, Where honour is the flattery of the fool; Sin, a tame bauble; lies, a tiresome jest; Virtue, a silly, whitewashed block of wood For words to fell. Ah! but the secret lacking,