115 
 
 
 
 
 
THE ARCHÆOLOGIST 
 
The carmined lips of your moustachioed mouth ;   
 The fading fires in your debauched grey eyes 
  With the black grooves about them, each a trench 
  Where some dead soldier rots, a sterile stench— 
 All of you, ripe and rotten, athwart the lies 
Of paint and powder, false fanfares of youth 
  That blare, yet passionate ache their tongue were true— 
  Hag of the pit, what should I make of you ?   
 
I will legitimize the bastard spell !   
 Take all your falsehood, weld it with my force. 
Now then, Canidia, match thy miracle 
With mine, old medlar !  Though the reek of hell 
 Gush from thy gorge, I hold my knightly course, 
Dragon !  I love thee, and I love thee well 
 Who am like a shipwrecked sailor that should skry 
On the horizon some scarred citadel 
 Or, smoking still, a volcan threat the sky, 
  Or hairy with burnt forests, wracked and rent, 
  Some ruin of an earthquaked continent !   
 
It is not love, but worship most religious, 
 This abject me, this wallowing at thy knees !