Where the black was as Eblis, and the sounds as worms moving in a grave.
Grew, while the black grew thick As the close, hot air of a cave In Eblis, where death-watches tick, Like the moving of worms in a grave;— Grew, till the dawn outdrave The black night, shudd’ring and sick.
The mimes chant their despair to the night.
Who were the mimes in the air That wept for the woe of our flight, That chanted a bitter despair, To the dark, haunted heart of the night— That knew not of wrong or of right, Save but of the moments that were?
He sees the past, as ruined sunsets, and the early morning of life.
The ruins of sunsets that hung On the far, reeling edge of the world;— The long-uttered thoughts that upsprung Like the ghosts of a past that was furled, Where the dreams of a life were impearled, In a morning forevermore young!
She also knew the demons that haunted.
And she; she knew even as I, Of the phantoms that haunted us there; Of the demons that never could die, While the world’s heart pulsed our despair; And out where the mad waters fare, The ghostly, wan shorelands should lie.
They ride by the hoarse sea, and the bitter winds and hell with them.
O, that night, and that terrible ride— With the bitter, sharp wind in the face, And the hoarse, great tongues of the tide, As it beat on the black of that place; Till all hell joined in the race, With death and despair for a guide!