“Fie on the hearth-ill-swept...”
Fie on the hearth ill-swept
Where sorrows over-kept
Sodden with tears and foul
Lie mouldering cheek by jowl
With mildewed revenges,
Grown tasteless with time’s changes,
Limp wraths and mumbled visions,
Fly-blown into derisions,
Delights jellied to slime
And tag-ends of rhyme
Life! Grant me a harder
Housewifery in my larder,
And if I may not eat
Fresh-killed meat,
Crisp joy and dewy loathing,
Let me have done with loving.
Aye, though philosophy’s
Wan pulse my palate freeze
Ere I to carrion swerve
Carrion-like, let me starve.
