26.

“For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee . . .”

Misuse makes for its costume gorgeous ghosts

Of garments any critic could revere.

O how I hate them fresh! — the grandiose

And homeliest alike, opaque or sheer,

Both rose and jet. Just those reduced to wraiths

Hold true appeal. In those I put my wear,

And then the Holy Ghost — well in my Faith’s

Constraints, no matter what you see or swear.

Thus when you vow by me, you vow by rag

Dampened with swamp wine, with a Host of earth

Rubbed through its threads, embellished with moss slag.

To vow by me is to avow a birth

Conception so neglected as to make

My own kin call its summons a mistake.