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Home  »  The New Poetry  »  The Interne

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

The Interne

By Maxwell Bodenheim

OH, the agony of having too much power!

In my passive palm are hundreds of lives.

Strange alchemy!—they drain my blood:

My heart becomes iron; my brain copper; my eyes silver; my lips brass.

Merely by twitching a supple finger, I twirl lives from me—strong-winged,

Or fluttering and broken.

They are my children, I am their mother and father.

I watch them live and die.