Though once you sought a cradle’s peace
in beds of roughened palls,
when bugles begged for passion’s lease,
you answered for its calls.
Where flaming tours of hell had rung
into your tattered slips,
you stayed the serpent’s heart and tongue
with daggers on your lips.
But when the tale is not to be
and when the battle’s won
an empty road your eyes do see
that stretches on and on.
For never is a wound so known
As mine is when I sleep alone.
