In my sixty-seventh year,
my wife's servile dogs refused command--
Fine, I said--
Leave us this brushpile of cobweb and moth--
Go flank the winged mare
who split the womb from which you dropped--
Thank her, for your mother's cloth--

They called among themselves Lamplight
of the Noon of Noon--
Horse and Cataract and Fen--
Fine, I said-- Call to yourselves
what you are-- Call what you will as well--
Go dumb and lame and far--
Do not return to us the moon--

Do not carry us over bridges of bone--
Over rivers of fat--
You bring my wife no sprig of bloom
to place upon the pallor of her head--
Fine; leave us this room, I said--
Or I shall offer you Death,
and of you Death beg nothing more--