THE STONE OF THE PHILOSOPHERS
87
Unveil the Pyramid of Stone!
He simply wants to be alone.
Women
suspect it.
Tell one that
To change her to a frenzied cat!
’Tis the one cliflwhere all their waves
Break back to spumed and shattered graves.
A man (at heart they’re well aware)
May love, maybe!
can never care.
I bore you with
an old fool’s prosing?
No? I was right, then, in supposing
Modern conditions
hamper youths
Who seek to grasp these simple Truths.
But to my yarn.
Carlotta lay
So sleepy-soft one summer’s day
That really I could not resist it.
I took the dagger out and kissed it.
Like a cat’s tongue that daintily
laps,
I slipped it in between her paps.
At first, of course, the shrieking
swerves
One’s thought:
it irritates the nerves;
And out of tone the laughter lies
At the poor innocent’s surprise.
But soon there triumphs cool and clean
The touching pathos of the scene.
No word of anger, be assured!
A strange soft wonder, long immured
Within her, lit her lovely face
With something of Our Lady’s grace.
“ What did you kill me for, my Lord?”
As if my answer must accord