The Walt Whitman Archive
Published Works
Books by Whitman
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View Page 360
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View Page 360
A HAND-MIRROR.
| HOLD it up sternly! See this it sends back! (Who is it? Is it you?) |
| Outside fair costume—within ashes and filth, |
| No more a flashing eye—no more a sonorous voice or springy step; |
| Now some slave's eye, voice, hands, step, |
| A drunkard's breath, unwholesome eater's face, vene- realee's flesh, |
| Lungs rotting away piecemeal, stomach sour and can- kerous, |
| Joints rheumatic, bowels clogged with abomination, |
| Blood circulating dark and poisonous streams, |
| Words babble, hearing and touch callous, |
| No brain, no heart left—no magnetism of sex; |
| Such, from one look in this looking-glass ere you go hence, |
| Such a result so soon—and from such a beginning! |