But when her mad, weird mood comes on Her demons all go mad with her; They shout the churning seas upon, And wrap the heavens in a blur.
She trails a ragged witch in grey Across the heaven’s wind-blown bars, And in her ashen folds away She hides the shuddering moon and stars.
And when she winds her ebon cloak, And leaps red levin from her eyes, She rends the century-ringèd oak, And laughs in thunder as it lies.
THE WERE-WOLVES.
They hasten, still they hasten, From the even to the dawn; And their tired eyes gleam and glisten Under north skies white and wan. Each panter in the darkness Is a demon-haunted soul, The shadowy, phantom were-wolves, Who circle round the Pole.
Their tongues are crimson flaming, Their haunted blue eyes gleam, And they strain them to the utmost O’er frozen lake and stream; Their cry one note of agony, That is neither yelp nor bark, These panters of the northern waste, Who hound them to the dark.
You may hear their hurried breathing, You may see their fleeting forms, At the pallid polar midnight, When the north is gathering storms; When the arctic frosts are flaming, And the ice-field thunders roll; These demon-haunted were-wolves, Who circle round the Pole.
They hasten, still they hasten, Across the northern night, Filled with a frighted madness, A horror of the light; Forever and forever, Like leaves before the wind, They leave the wan, white gleaming Of the dawning far behind.