As one whose eyes have watched the stricken day
Swoon to its crimson death adown the sea,
We who have walked deserted stubble fields on a December evening,
Who have seen over the field's edge a soft river woman scattering
SOMETHING lies in the room
Over against my own;
These are enchanted mirrors that I bring,
By demons wrought from metals of the moon
From the sad eaves the drip-drop of the rain!
The water washing at the latchel door;
Gnats and an ant have gnawed your nimble bones–
You who could spring and sprawl on your own thread
The pendulum, with brazen din,
Proclaims the midnight; we begin
All Hallows Eve — when ghosts do walk the earth:
All Hallows Eve — O light and fireside mirth!
I
Yes, yes, dear love! I am dead!
You ask my wish--the boon I crave,
O grant it--leave me what I have:
When, heaving on the stormy waters,
I felt my ship beneath to sink,
Death always takes the shape
of our bedroom.
Girded by wastes of sounding foam, Slumbers unseen the fruitful isle;
Whose knowledge is a bloody field
Wheare all hope slaine doth lie;
The chatter of a death-demon from a tree-top
Blood -- blood and torn grass --
All the world's ruled by the Dragon -
Fiery, mad, wicked, perverse.
All in the wild and windy night
I heard the treetops moan,
Sad, and sweet, and wise,
Here a child reposes,
Awhile she lay all passive to the touch
Of those small fingers, and the soft, soft lips
There is an orb that mocked the lore of sages
Long time with mystery of strange unrest;
Should I long that dark were fair? Say, O song.
Lacks my love aught that I should long?
In the middle of a silence deserted as a street before a crime
not even breathing so that nothing will disturb my dying
Orpheus, the night is full of tears and cries,
And hardly for the storm and ruin shed
Exiled afar from youth and happy love,
If Death should ravish my fond spirit hence
Stripping an almond tree in flower
The wise apothecary's skill
Yes, death is at the bottom of the cup,
And every one that lives must drink it up;
Over the rushing river
Where shaggy fir-trees stand,
ASK not my pardon! For if one hath need
Once to forgive the god that he hath raised,
ONCE from the world of living men
I passed, by a strange fancy led,
The prime of summer is coming, and with it there comes, to-day,
A thought of another summer, whose garlands have faded away:
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