Staring corpselike at the ceiling, <br />See his harsh, unrazored features, <br />Ghastly brown against the pillow, <br />And his throat-so strangely bandaged! <br /> <br />Lack of work and lack of victuals, <br />A debauch of smuggled whisky, <br />And his children in the workhouse <br />Made the world so black a riddle <br /> <br />That he plunged for a solution; <br />And, although his knife was edgeless, <br />He was sinking fast towards one, <br />When they came, and found, and saved him. <br /> <br />Stupid now with shame and sorrow, <br />In the night I hear him sobbing. <br />But sometimes he talks a little. <br />He has told me all his troubles. <br /> <br />In his broad face, tanned and bloodless, <br />White and wild his eyeballs glisten; <br />And his smile, occult and tragic, <br />Yet so slavish, makes you shudder!<br /><br />William Ernest Henley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/suicide-267/
