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Home  »  The Second Book of Modern Verse  »  Moth-Terror

Jessie B. Rittenhouse, ed. (1869–1948). The Second Book of Modern Verse. 1922.

Moth-Terror

I HAVE killed the moth flying around my night-light; wingless and dead it lies upon the floor.

(O who will kill the great Time-Moth that eats holes in my soul and that burrows in and through my secretest veils!)

My will against its will, and no more will it fly at my night-light or be hidden behind the curtains that swing in the winds.

(But O who will shatter the Change-Moth that leaves me in rags—tattered old tapestries that swing in the winds that blow out of Chaos!)

Night-Moth, Change-Moth, Time-Moth, eaters of dreams and of me!