Diary of a Drug Fiend

152 The Diary of a Drug Fiend Every drop of the river Of blood aflame and a-quiver With poison secret and sour— With a sudden twitch at the last — Like certain jagged daggers. (With bloodshot eyes dull-glassed The screaming Malay staggers Through his village aghast). So blood wrenches its pain Sardonic through heart and brain. Every separate nerve Awake and alert, on a curve Whose asymptote’s name is “ In a hyperbolic “ for ever!” A bitten and burning snake Striking its venom within it, As if it might serve to slake The pain for the tithe of a minute. never ” Awake, for ever awake! Awake as. one never is > While sleep is a possible end, Awake in the void, the abyss Whose thirst is an echo of this That martyrs, world without end, (World without end, Amen }) The man that falters and yields , For the proverb’s ‘“‘ month and an hour” To the lure of the snow-starred fields Where the opium poppy’s aflower. Only the prick of a needle Charged from a wizard well! Is this sufficient to wheedle A soul from heaven to hell? Was man’s spirit weaned From fear of its ghosts and gods To fawn at the feet of a fiend? Is it such terrible odds—