HOLD it up sternly! See this it sends back! (Who is it? Is it you?) <br /> Outside fair costume--within ashes and filth, <br /> No more a flashing eye--no more a sonorous voice or springy step; <br /> Now some slave's eye, voice, hands, step, <br /> A drunkard's breath, unwholesome eater's face, venerealee's flesh, <br /> Lungs rotting away piecemeal, stomach sour and cankerous, <br /> Joints rheumatic, bowels clogged with abomination, <br /> Blood circulating dark and poisonous streams, <br /> Words babble, hearing and touch callous, <br /> No brain, no heart left--no magnetism of sex; 10 <br /> Such, from one look in this looking-glass ere you go hence, <br /> Such a result so soon--and from such a beginning!<br /><br />Walt Whitman<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-hand-mirror/
