<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head"> A Dead Man</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">A dead man dead for weeks</p><p class="line">Is sickening food for lover's eye</p><p class="line">That seeks and ever seeks</p><p class="line">A fair one's beauty ardently !</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Did that thing live of late ?</p><p class="line">That sodden thing of ebony head</p><p class="line">With empty holes that gape ?</p><p class="line">Good God ! will I be that, when dead ?</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Perhaps those blackened bones</p><p class="line">Were subtly fashioned hand and wrist</p><p class="line">That made sweet violin tones,</p><p class="line">Or held a face till lips had kissed !</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Perhaps--but, no ! it cannot be,</p><p class="line">This thing is but a heap of slime--</p><p class="line">A hideous mockery--</p><p class="line">The man is safe from rotting Time :</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Then stick it under ground !</p><p class="line">It is a thing for spades not tears;</p><p class="line">And make no mourning sound,</p><p class="line">And finished, have no fears :</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">For, glowing in some woman's heart,</p><p class="line">He lives embalmed, unchanging, and apart !</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Then come ! let's kill the memory of this place--</p><p class="line">O friends ! it had a hideous, ebony face !</p></div></body></html> · Great War