On no work of words now for three lean months in the bloody1
Belly2 of the rich year and the big purse of my body
I bitterly take to task my poverty and craft:
To take to give is all, return what is hungrily given
Puffing3 the pounds of manna up through the dew to heaven,
The lovely gift of the gab4 bangs back on a blind shaft5.
To lift to leave from treasures of man is pleasing death
That will rake at last all currencies of the marked breath
And count the taken, forsaken6 mysteries in a bad dark.
To surrender now is to pay the expensive ogre twice.
Ancient woods of my blood, dash down to the nut of the seas
If I take to burn or return this world which is each man'swork.