Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills. <br />It is not the effort nor the failure tires. <br />The waste remains, the waste remains and kills. <br /> <br />It is not your system or clear sight that mills <br />Down small to the consequence a life requires; <br />Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills. <br /> <br />They bled an old dog dry yet the exchange rills <br />Of young dog blood gave but a month's desires. <br />The waste remains, the waste remains and kills. <br /> <br />It is the Chinese tombs and the slag hills <br />Usurp the soil, and not the soil retires. <br />Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills. <br /> <br />Not to have fire is to be a skin that shrills. <br />The complete fire is death. From partial fires <br />The waste remains, the waste remains and kills. <br /> <br />It is the poems you have lost, the ills <br />From missing dates, at which the heart expires. <br />Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills. <br />The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.<br /><br />William Empson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/missing-dates/
