There was a graven image of Desire
⁠Painted with red blood on a ground of gold
⁠Passing between the young men and the old,
And by him Pain, whose body shone like fire,
And Pleasure with gaunt hands that grasped their hire.
⁠Of his left wrist, with fingers clenched and cold,
⁠The insatiable Satiety kept hold,
Walking with feet unshod that pashed the mire.
The senses and the sorrows and the sins,
⁠And the strange loves that suck the breasts of Hate
⁠Till lips and teeth bite in their sharp indenture,
Followed like beasts with flap of wings and fins.
⁠Death stood aloof behind a gaping grate,
⁠Upon whose lock was written Peradventure.