ALCHEMY
(Written in a Warehouse)

With melancholy rows of wooden cases
Piled high around me, I have worked today;
And smelled the mustiness of old, damp sacks;
Saw stale meat strung up on rails; the grey
Drabness of crumbling walls; rusty iron doors; and stacks
Of tins made dull by darkness:
                                                 Strangely evil faces
Leered as shadows stirred in corners; dusty cobwebs moved;
The sticky, crawling flies found filthy places
And banqueted:
                         I shivered; longed for rooms I loved;
Fought hard to like monotony and duty,
Darkness and dirt; for one moment, I
Thought of you!
                          And drabness changed to beauty.

 

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