You, walking past me and racing

You, walking past me and racing
After charms that you’ll hardly attain, -
If you knew how much fire is wasted,
How much life is wasted in vain!

And what flames, so heroically rash,
An occasional shade can evoke,
And how my heart was burnt into ash
By this useless gunpowder smoke.

O, those trains leaving terminals nightly,
Carrying sleep wherever they go …
Then again, it’s rather unlikely
That you’d know, even if you would know -

Why my speeches are sharp and brief,
In the smoke of my cigarette, -
How much dark and menacing grief
Is crammed in my golden-haired head.