The Night lies with her body crookedly flung
In agony across the sharp hills;
By the fitful moon her nostrils are taut, quivering;
She is tensed in cold sweat and lonely fear,
Giving birth in dark, sly, trodden places
To her unlawful issue, blind, hideous Death.
Across the pain-jerked body of the Night
We must go, taking the new-born Death in arms
Holding it close, warmly to us, as our own,
Giving it new games to play, new toys to tear apart.