A broken, an emptied boat,
⁠Sea saps it, winds blow apart,
Sick and adrift and afloat,
⁠The barren waif of a heart.

Where, when the gods would be cruel,
⁠Do they go for a torture? where
Plant thorns, set pain like a jewel?
⁠Ah, not in the flesh, not there!

The racks of earth and the rods
⁠Are weak as foam on the sands;
In the heart is the prey for gods,
⁠Who crucify hearts, not hands.

Mere pangs corrode and consume,
⁠Dead when life dies in the brain;
In the infinite spirit is room
⁠For the pulse of an infinite pain.

I wish you were dead, my dear;
⁠I would give you, had I to give,
Some death too bitter to fear;
⁠It is better to die than live.

I wish you were stricken of thunder
⁠And burnt with a bright flame through,
Consumed and cloven in sunder,
⁠I dead at your feet like you.