And have you drunk the tears of stars,
And bathed in bubbles of the moon,
And heard the gay grasshoppers croon,
Who use their bodies as guitars?
Then, if you’ve seen the phœnix land
Or if a satyr’s beard you’ve sawn,
And filed the eye-brows of a faun,
We will admit you to our band.
The hedonistic unicorns,
Who drive our chariots through the sky,
Will lead you to our empery
Of languid dappled damson dawns.
The Were-Wolf
ALL in the hush of a green night,
He left the downy marriage-bed
In a chill sweat, his face chalk-white,
His voice spoke hoarsely of the dead.
The young wife, wakened by his howls,
Clutched bed-post dumb with fright, surprise;
Like lepers huddled under cowls,
Red films lay on her husband’s eyes.
“I am become a wolf,” he said,
“And I will to the churchyard-site
To throttle graves, to raise the dead.
Strange flesh will be my fare to-night!”
And barking at the slice of moon
He scampered nimbly on all fours.
She never saw him more; one noon
She spied the imprint of wolf’s claws.
Hilarity
COME, let us sing the world’s hilarity,
Now that a silence overspreads the hills,
Each crevice, muscle, wimpling in a haze,
Blue-ragged fustian of twilight: come
And crack the sky with laughter, mounting shrill,
Let it dissolve the æther, let it break
In bubbles, circles ever-bosoming,
As when a trout has troubled a still pool.