Page:Poems by Isaac Rosenberg (1922).djvu/200



In his malodorous brain what slugs and mire, Lanthorned in his oblique eyes, guttering burned! His body lodged a rat where men nursed souls: The world flashed grape-green eyes of a foiled cat To him. On fragments of an old shrunk power, On shy and maimed, on women wrung awry, He lay—a bullying hulk—to crush them more; But when one fearless turned and clawed like bronze, Cringing was easy to blunt these stern paws, And he would weigh the heavier on those after.

Who rests in God's mean flattery now? Your wealth Is but his cunning to make death more hard, Your iron sinews take more pain in breaking; And he has made the market for your beauty Too poor to buy although you die to sell.