Sleeplessness

Some shrill interrogating wind incessant cries
Without—within—Or never there at all!
What sick dejection rides upon my eyes
Absurdly overwhelming with accumulated woe
These fancies as they rise.
Tomorrow's wave crests to the midnight hour.
Crash on my brow. Crash the grey green arching dream
Of seasalt glory cleanly down, and drown
My fever pain with tears.
Two hyacinths, hung in a jar, sigh in the dark,
Till the room moves in sorrowing slow blue tune:
Sleep folds frozen into a pillow of rain
Strung like a necklace of pain—round and around.
Sharp seed beds of nerves prickle and shiver and die
The window is gone—no voice need cry.
Only the curtain falls, like snow piled over deep,
Slipping, wider-folding-down slow gentleness of sleep.

P