CHICAGO MAY
XI
‘She never lets me from her sight an hour.
On one excuse, five minutes and no more!
‘And then—even then !—she fears to lose her power.
T hear her heavy breathing at the door:
She listens. “What's he doing?” One confesses
That one must leave you to a pair of guesses.
r, she will send me out, some time she feels
She is safe, and when my back is turned, she runs
Through all my pockets eagerly, and steals
Each scrap of writing. She was human once :
Her thirty years of whoring have snowed under
All traces of it; and, by God, no wonder|
She even stole my own vile wage; she stole
‘What she had given me herself: she took
The body, wants the mind, would take the soul
If she knew any longer where to look.
No, my good sow. You take what you have paid for;
‘The other matters you were never made for.
‘That is her curse. She feels and knows she has
Nothing of any value, feels and knows
She is cast out for ever, cannot pass
From her own mire to my eternal snows.
She could not, would not; yet is not exempt
From feeling all my close-concealed contempt.