42
PARTISAN REVIEW
Therefore the house will say that all of us
Will die like rats. I say that's partly true!
Some still imaginary barricade
Stinks in tomorrow's sun. The rats will eat
And fatten on the dead and bite us dying.
Sometimes I am afraid to think of dying
Because I do not see where the glory is,
And death is death. But we will not be rats
That bloody year, and we will not be remnants.
In God's name, if you like, what is a man
That always has to have his brother stamping
Smack on his face and eating all the fat
Off his ribs, and what, if you like still,
In God's name is his brother, when there's nothing
He can turn his hand to in his own
Windshaken house? Counting it up myself,
I have been sick in this house for seven years,
And this is my house, where the ruined sun
Glints the beams with death, and Empire lost
Shrieks its ghastly stammer in the blood:
This is my house where the Hungry queue
With terrible thin faces.
They will not
Stand there much longer looking at this house
With mute, impassive jaws. I do not think
The house will keep them there much longer looking!
If
I but turn my mind to think of it,
Those waiting there, I think, will wreck the house,
The hard throats crying the blood of generations.
No more than I will they be bound: myself,
I shall not feel the hands
stre~hed
out to hold me
And I will not look back at that lost house.
LoYD COLLINS.
