A gin-damned drunkard’s wan half-witted face 2

stared with piteous recognition in fixed eyes. 3

The winds from the west all breathed a story; 4

I couldn’t understand a word. 5

How long I stayed alone with the corpse I never knew. 6
 
What is that noise now? What is the wind doing? 7

They pursued it with forks and hope; 8

the jaws that bite, the claws that catch, 9

the secrets and the signals and the system. 10

Is it a banished soul? 11
 
Essence of winter sleep is on the night. 12

I sit and listen to the wind’s 13

laughter out of dead bellies. 14
1The title is from Agernon Charles Swinburne’s “Hertha.” I added capitalization.

2 from Gilbert Chesterton’s “The Mirror of Madmen.”

3 from Wilfred Owen’s “Strange Meeting.” I removed a line break.

4 from Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s “The Lost Garden.” I added a capital and the semi-colon.

5 from Edwin C. Ranck’s “The Epic of the Hog.” I added the period.

6 from Christina G. Rossetti’s “Under the Rose.” I removed a line break and capital,

     and added the period.

7 from T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land.”

8 from Lewis Carroll’s “The Hunting of the Snark.”

9 from Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky.” I removed a capital and an exclamation mark,

     and added a comma.

10 from Carl Sandburg’s “Our Prayer of Thanks.” I added the period.

11 from Bliss Carman’s “Behind the Arras.” I added the question mark.

12 from Robert Frost’s “After Apple-Picking.” I added the period.

13 from Joanna Baillie’s “Night Scenes of Other Times. I added the ‘s.

14 from Ezra Pound’s “Ode Pour L’Election de Son Sepulchre.”