Quite a dealer in death. And ours was a case
That those difficult drugs of his laboratory
Demanded. I visited; found him; his face,
Bent over a sublimate,--safe from the hoary
Light particles,--masked with a mask of fine glass.
I told him your danger, Marie, and expounded
Our passion, despair, with many an "Alas!"
He smiled while a paste in a mortar he pounded.