The Capital

A dolorous fruit is the vast capital.
Its bursten skin and pulp too ripened dye
Opulently their rich rottenness
With green gold, violet, and red phosphorus.

Oozing a sickly sweet, thick, cancerous juice,
Its spongy flesh melts in the mouth, and in
Its pensive poisons germinate the rank,
Perverted sins of fever-tortured brains.

So strange its spice, so exquisite its taste,--
A macerated ginger in a rare elixir,--
I plunged my teeth in it with greedy haste.

But dizziness I ate, and madness drank.
And that is why I trail a debile frame,
With my youth dying in the husk of my strength.