Whet

Quick roil strong winds, plump rain, or sudden snow;
bellows like a bull's flicked tongue in and out,
plumes of this smoke steal what little lights sprout
powerless in a sole breath lying low.

Rambling vagabonds, by land or by sea
pitch black is the night that to us has spun...
on sands that drip flame hotter than the sun,
thereof stranded oars of the thickest tree.

Alive and whetted do none hear the screams,
for still are halls in a mansion of pain;
oh, but how wide does the gate bid downstream,

like the wings open and firm of doves fain
in their nest deaf, to what the oscine stream
when they yearn for which of rind yet might grain.