THE CUP OF COMUS
PROEM
The Nights of song and story,
With breath of frost and rain,
Whose locks are wild and hoary,
Whose fingers tap the pane
With leaves, are come again.
The Nights of old October,
That hug the hearth and tell,
To child and grandsire sober,
Tales of what long befell
Of witch and warlock spell.
Nights, that, like gnome and faery,
Go, lost in mist and moon.
And speak in legendary
Thoughts or a mystic rune,
Much like the owlet's croon.
Or whirling on like witches,
Amid the brush and broom,
Call from the Earth its riches,
Of leaves and wild perfume,
And strew them through the gloom.
Till death, in all his starkness,
Assumes a form of fear,
And somewhere in the darkness
Seems slowly drawing near
In raiment torn and sere.
And with him comes November,
Who drips outside the door,
And wails what men remember
Of things believed no more,
Of superstitious lore.
Old tales of elf and dæmon,
Of Kobold and of Troll,
And of the goblin woman
Who robs man of his soul
To make her own soul whole.
And all such tales, that glamoured
The child-heart once with fright,
That aged lips have stammered
For many a child's delight,
Shall speak again to-night.
To-night, of moonlight minted,
That is a cup divine,
Whence Death, all opal-tinted—
Wreathed red with leaf and vine—
Shall drink a magic wine.
A wonder-cup of Comus,
That with enchantment streams,
In which the heart of Momus—
That, moon-like, glooms and gleams,
Is drowned with all its dreams.
THE INTRUDER
There is a smell of roses in the room
Tea-roses, dead of bloom;
An invalid, she sits there in the gloom,
And contemplates her doom.
The pattern of the paper, and the grain.
Of carpet, with its stain,
Have stamped themselves, like fever, on her brain,
And grown a part of pain.
It has been long, so long, since that one died,
Or sat there by her side;
She felt so lonely, lost, she would have cried—
But all her tears were dried.
A knock came on the door: she hardly heard;
And then—a whispered word,
And someone entered; at which, like a bird,
Her caged heart cried and stirred.
And then—she heard a voice; she was not wrong:
His voice, alive and strong: She listened, while the silence filled with song— Oh, she had waited long!
She dared not turn to see; she dared not look;
But slowly closed her book,
And waited for his kiss; could scarcely brook
The weary time he took.
There was no one remembered her—no one!
But him, beneath the sun—
Who then had entered? entered but to shun Her whose long work was done.
She raised her eyes, and—no one!—Yet she felt
A presence near, that smelt
Like faded roses; and that seemed to melt
Into her soul that knelt.
She could not see, but knew that he was there, Smoothing her hands and hair; Filling with scents of roses all the air, Standing beside her chair.
* * * *
And so they found her, sitting quietly,
Her book upon her knee,
Staring before her, as if she could see—
What was it—Death? or he?
A GHOST OF YESTERDAY
There is a house beside a way,
Where dwells a ghost of Yesterday:
The old face of a beauty, faded,
Looks from its garden: and the shaded
Long walks of locust-trees, that seem
Forevermore to sigh and dream,
Keep whispering low a word that's true,
Of shapes that haunt its avenue,
Clad as in days of belle and beau,
Who come and go
Around its ancient portico.
At first, in stock and beaver-hat,
With flitting of the moth and bat,
An old man, leaning on a cane,
Comes slowly down the locust lane;
Looks at the house; then, groping, goes