The Winged Beetle

215 WOMAN THE whole wide world is meat-of-murderess For thee, foul woman, cruel from idleness. To whet thy teeth at this ferocious play Thy rat-trap needs a man’s heart every day. Thine eyes, lit up like shops or booths that flare When all the world keeps holiday, still glare, Using a borrowed power with insolence, Ignoring beauty’s law that lent them sense. Blind wheel and deaf, of Hell in travail curled ! Brave tool that drinks the blood of all the world ! Hast thou no shame ? and hast thou no alarm Whose mirror shows thee thy decaying charm ? Hath not the vastness of the evil thing Thou think’st thee wise of, sent thee shuddering When Nature—grand, persistent, tenebrous— Uses thee, woman, thee, princess of pus, Vile animal !—to slay a genius ? O golden mire ! fame ignominious !