~ POET'S NEMESIS

Conceive me as a dream of stone:
my breast, where mortals come to grief,
is made to prompt the poet’s love,
mute and noble as matter itself.

With snow for flesh, with ice for heart,
I sit on high, an unguessed sphinx
begrudging acts that alter forms;
I never laugh, I never weep.

In studious awe the poet broods
before my monumental pose
aped from the proudest pedestal,
and to bind this docile lover fast
I freeze the world in a perfect mirror:
the untenable light of my infernal eyes.