Adder-flames shrieking slow,
Stinging bright fruit-like snow,
Down in the street below;
While an ape, with black spangled veil,
Plum’d head-dress, face dust-pale,
Scratch’d with a finger-nail
Sounds from a mandoline,
Tuneless and sharp as sin:—
Shutters whose tang and sheen,
Shrieking all down the scale,
Seem like the flames that fail
Under that onyx nail,
Light as snow dancing fleet,
Bright as a parokeet,
Down in Hell’s empty street.
“COMEDY FOR MARIONETTES”
(To I. C. P.)
TANG the sharp mandoline!
Hail, falling in the lean
Street of Hell, sweeps it clean.
Under the puppet booth,
Down in Hell, see the smooth
Snow bright as fruit and sooth.
Cherries and plums all freeze—
Rubies upon the trees,
Rubied hail falls through these,
Pelting each young Snow Queen—
(A swan’s breath, so whitely seen,)
Flirting her fan in lean