The day it was pale and bright:
The room it was pale and bright:
The room so luminous and bright;—
When it arose in surreptitious canals,
As a hail of fire in the night,
A gloom so treacherous and banal,
So lecherous and banal,
In the eerie seals of sight;
That bare and baritone canal,
In a room so luminous in light.
The soul she did not reckon:
The swift form to beckon;
The void to vow and unveil
All this liquid in livid detail:—
A gangrene gondola of pain
Passing off as a golden train;
With dire depths that entail:—
A lyre caught in his liquid tail,
A lyre, so lonesome and frail—
to stand bold, insane.
Too easy, with keyboard and mouse,
Too easy in the makeup of house;
So so easy in the silence of house;—
Lubricious as a lug-worm he awoke
Like a quiet secret to invoke—
An urgent and ugly louse
(A shark swimming in a sailor’s cloak)
Ushered in this lonesome mouse—
This feeble and friendly mouse,
In the jaws of her virtual blouse.