To a Romantic

The mourners who surround his crystal coffin,
Who totter, shuffle, group about his hearse
Are the vast abstractions used to make his verse,
They are the words italicized, invisibly, too often,…

He who used “horror,” often, and—fondly, “agony,”
“Anguish,” “terror,” “despair,” etc. lies smiling like
       a child
In bed,—in the innocence of crystal suddenly free
Of the debauched words. Oh, bland and mild

He rests in his romantic certainty of fame.
The words cry the rehearsed plaint of his distraction,
His eyes are shut in a mighty stupefaction,
The enfeebled words repeat the synonym, his name.