A CHILD'S WINTER EVENING

The smothering dark engulfs relentlessly

With nightmare tread approaching steadfastly;

All horrors thicken as the daylight fails

And, is it wind, or some lost ghost that wails?

Tongue cannot tell the stories that beset,

With livid pictures blackness dense as jet,

Or that wild questioning—whence we are; and why;

If death is darkness; and why I am I.

The children look through the uneven pane

Out to the world, to bring them joy again;

But only snowflakes melting into mire

Without, within the red glow of the fire.

They long for something wonderful to break

This long-drawn winter wistfulness, and take

Shape in the darkness; threatening like Fate

There comes a hell-like crackling from the grate.

But hand in hand they urge themselves anear

And watch the cities burning bright and clear;

Faces diabolical and cliffs and halls

And strangely-pinnacled, molten castle walls.

Tall figures flicker on the ceiling stark

Then grimly fade into one ominous dark;

Dream terrors iron-bound throng on them apace,

And dusk with fire, and flames with shadows race.

Gwen John