“Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills.
It is not the effort nor the failure tires.
The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.”

—  William Empson

"Missing Dates" (1937), line 1; cited from John Haffenden (ed.) The Complete Poems (London: Allen Lane, 2000) p. 79.
The Complete Poems

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William Empson 25
English literary critic and poet 1906–1984

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