Now night,
The sighing night,
Descends to hide and heal
The crimson wounds
Ripped in the sky,
Where the high helmet-towers
(With clouds as streaming feathers)
Have torn the Heavens
In their incessant sunset battle.
Below,
Upon the mound,
Small golden flowers
Release their daylight slowly
At the Night's behest,
Till they become pale discs
That quiver
When the evening wind
Draws his thin fingers
Down the dew-drenched grass
—As an old harper,
Who awakes
From drunken sunlit slumber,
Blindly plucks
His silver-sounding strings,
Making the sound
That, further, darker down
The trees make,
When they draw back
Their upturned leaves
In fountain-foaming hurry.
II
The curling, hump-backed dolphins,
Drunk with purple fumes
Of wine-stained sunset,
Plunge through the wider waters of the night—
Waters that well down every narrow street
In darkening billows,
Till they become quiet, full—
Canals that, mirror-like,
Reflect each sound
Of snarling song
In all the town.
And as the dolphins dive
There splashes back
Upon their goat-eared riders,
Dislodged in sudden fury,
The foaming froth of summer-cooling winds
—Issuing from where the northern trees
Bellow their resined breath
Across the seas
To ripple through far fields
Of twilight flowers—
Sweeping across
To where these old high towers
Of Carcassonne
Still stand to break their flow.
Neptune, from his high pedestal,
Can watch the waters of the night
Rise, further, further,
And the faun-riders sink below
The conquering, cool tide.
PROGRESS
The city's heat is like a leaden pall—
Its lowered lamps glow in the midnight air
Like mammoth orange-moths that flit and flare
Through the dark tapestry of night. The tall
Black houses crush the creeping beggars down,
Who walk beneath and think of breezes cool,
Of silver bodies bathing in a pool,
Or trees that whisper in some far, small town
Whose quiet nursed them, when they thought that gold
Was merely metal, not a grave of mould
In which men bury all that's fine and fair.
When they could chase the jewelled butterfly
Through the green bracken-scented lanes, or sigh
For all the future held so rich and rare;
When, though they knew it not, their baby cries
Were lovely as the jewelled butterflies.
THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL
I lay awake in that dim room of fear
Which seemed to hold the essence of the night,
Clutched in the grip of its tall sentient walls:
Dark walls and high, that stretch for ever up—
Up to the darkness, vague and menacing,
As if no light could ever penetrate
That mist of shadows, only cast a gloom
More cavernous upon the atmosphere
That seems to thicken into cloudy shapes,
Substantiate—then disappear and die.
And all the room is full of whisperings;
Of moving things that hope I do not heed;
And sudden gusts of wind blow cold upon
My head, lifting the heavy mantle of the air,
Revealing for an instant some vague thought
Snatched from the haunting lumberland of dreams.
Far in the distance, from the open night,
Sounds an insistent hooting from the wood;
The owl is calling to its kindred things.
The bat emits its sinful piercing note—
So high one cannot hear it, only feel
The rhythm beat within the shrinking ear.
A faint breeze blows in from the countryside,
Rustling the curtains with the forest's breath,
Stirring the grass of many an unknown tomb,
Some new—some immemorably old,
Whose dwellers never heard an owl at night,
Only the reptile sounds and beating wings
Of some forefather of that bird of night—
Some flapping scaly monster with huge wings.
Then, sudden, through the rustling of the room
Silence shrills out its startling trumpet call
Of terror, and the house is frozen still.
Despair dropp'd down like rain upon my heart,
Catching my breath and clutching at my throat.
Fear magnified my senses, and my brain
Could hear beyond the threshold of this world.
Then through the threatening silence of the house,
The silent waiting for the coming play—
There came that halting well-remembered tread,
The dreadful limp, and dragging of the feet,
That cruel sin-white face looked through the door!
And in my scream—that rent the trembling air,
Reaching the woods and tainting them with death,
Filling the fountain with strange ripplings
That make the moon's reflection but a mask
Like to that face of shame—my soul passed out—
Out of my ashen lips, to find its end.