"Unmask!" I cried. "Yea, doff thy casque!
Put up thy visor! fight me fair!
I have no mail; my head is bare!
Take off thy helm, is all I ask!
Why dost thou hide thy face?—Unmask!"—
My eyes were blind with blood and hair,
And still I cried, "Take off thy casque!"
And then once more that laugh rang out
Like madness in the caves of Hell:
It hooted like some monster well,
The haunt of owls, or some mad rout
Of witches. And with battle shout
Once more upon that knight I fell,
While wild again that laugh rang out.
Like Death's own eyes his glared in mine,
As with the fragment of my blade
I smote him helmwise; huge he swayed,
Then crashed, like some cadaverous pine,
Uncasqued, his face in full moonshine:
And I—I saw; and shrank afraid.
For, lo! behold! the face was mine.
What devil's work was here!—What jest
For fiends to laugh at, demons hiss!—
To slay myself? and so to miss
My hate's reward?—revenge confessed!—
Was this knight I?—My brain I pressed.—
Then who was he who gazed on this?—
What devil's work was here!——What jest!
It was myself on whom I gazed—
My darker self!—With fear I rose.—
I was right weak from those great blows.—
I stood bewildered, stunned and dazed,
And looked around with eyes amazed.—
I could not slay her now, God knows!—
Around me there a while I gazed.
Then turned and fled into the night,
While overhead once more I heard
That laughter, like some demon bird
Wailing in darkness.—Then a light
Made clear a woman by that knight.
I saw 'twas she, but said no word,
And silent fled into the night.
IN ARCADY
I remember, when a child,
How within the April wild
Once I walked with Mystery
In the groves of Arcady….
Through the boughs, before, behind,
Swept the mantle of the wind,
Thunderous and unconfined.
Overhead the curving moon
Pierced the twilight: a cocoon,
Golden, big with unborn wings—
Beauty, shaping spiritual things,
Vague, impatient of the night,
Eager for its heavenward flight
Out of darkness into light.
Here and there the oaks assumed
Satyr aspects; shadows gloomed,
Hiding, of a dryad look;
And the naiad-frantic brook,
Crying, fled the solitude,
Filled with terror of the wood,
Or some faun-thing that pursued.