HOLD it up sternly! See this it sends back! (Who is it? Is it you?)
Outside fair costumewithin ashes and filth,
No more a flashing eyeno more a sonorous voice or springy step;
Now some slaves eye, voice, hands, step,
A drunkards breath, unwholesome eaters face, venerealees flesh,
Lungs rotting away piecemeal, stomach sour and cankerous,
Joints rheumatic, bowels clogged with abomination,
Blood circulating dark and poisonous streams,
Words babble, hearing and touch callous,
No brain, no heart leftno magnetism of sex;
Such, from one look in this looking-glass ere you go hence,
Such a result so soonand from such a beginning!
A Hand-Mirror.
written byWalt Whitman
© Walt Whitman