APENECK Sweeney spreads his knees
　　Letting his arms hang down to laugh,
　　The zebra stripes along his jaw
　　Swelling to maculate giraffe.
　　
　　The circles of the stormy moon
　　Slide westward toward the River Plate,
　　Death and the Raven drift above
　　And Sweeney guards the horned gate.
　　
　　Gloomy Orion and the Dog
　　Are veiled; and hushed the shrunken seas;
　　The person in the Spanish cape
　　Tries to sit on Sweeney's knees
　　
　　Slips and pulls the table cloth
　　Overturns a coffee-cup,
　　Reorganized upon the floor
　　She yawns and draws a stocking up;
　　
　　The silent man in mocha brown
　　Sprawls at the window-sill and gapes;
　　The waiter brings in oranges
　　Bananas figs and hothouse grapes;
　　
　　The silent vertebrate in brown
　　Contracts and concentrates, withdraws;
　　Rachel née Rabinovitch
　　Tears at the grapes with murderous paws;
　　
　　She and the lady in the cape
　　Are suspect, thought to be in league;
　　Therefore the man with heavy eyes
　　Declines the gambit, shows fatigue,
　　
　　Leaves the room and reappears
　　Outside the window, leaning in,
　　Branches of wistaria
　　Circumscribe a golden grin;
　　
　　The host with someone indistinct
　　Converses at the door apart,
　　The nightingales are singing near
　　The Convent of the Sacred Heart,
　　
　　And sang within the bloody wood
　　When Agamemnon cried aloud,
　　And let their liquid droppings fall
　　To stain the stiff dishonoured shroud.

【注释】 "Sweeney Among the Nightingales" was originally printed in Little Review, September, 1918.