| AROUND HIM MERMAIDS SING FOAM-CLAD (See page 168) | Frontispiece |
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| STARED AND WHISPERED AND SMILED AND WEPT (See page 49) | 124 |
| THAT REED-SLENDER GIRL WHOM PAN PURSUED | 242 |
PROEM
Not while I live may I forget
That garden which my spirit trod!
Where dreams were flowers, wild and wet,
And beautiful as God.
Not while I breathe, awake, adream,
Shall live again for me those hours,
When, in its mystery and gleam,
I met her 'mid the flowers.
Eyes, talismanic heliotrope,
Beneath mesmeric lashes, where
The sorceries of love and hope
Had made a shining lair.
And daydawn brows, whereover hung
The twilight of dark locks; wild birds,
Her lips, that spoke the rose's tongue
In fragrance-voweled words.
I will not speak of cheeks and chin,
That held me as sweet language holds;
Nor of the eloquence within
Her breasts' twin-moonéd molds.
Nor of her body's languorous
Wind-grace, that glanced like starlight through
Her clinging robe's diaphanous
Web of the mist and dew.
There is no star so pure and high
As was her look; no fragrance such
As her soft presence; and no sigh
Of music like her touch.
Not while I live may I forget
That garden of dim dreams, where I
And Song within the spirit met,
Sweet Song, who passed me by.
POEMS OF MYSTERY
HAUNTED
I
Without a moon when night comes on
There is a sighing in its trees
As of sad lips that no one sees;
And the far-dwindling forest, large
Beyond fenced fields, seems shadowy drawn
Into its shadows. Faint and wan,
By the wistariaed portico
Stealing, I go
Through gardens where the weeds are rank:
Where, here and there, in clump and bank,
Spiræas rise, whose dotted blooms
Seem clustered starlight; and the four
Syringas sweet heap, powdered o'er,
Thin flower-beakers of perfumes;
And the dead flowering-almond tree,
That once was pink as her young cheek,
Now withered leans within the glooms.—
Why must I walk here? seek and seek
Her, long since gone?—Still bower on bower
The roses climb in blushing flower.—
Ah, 'mid the roses could I see
Her eyes, her sad eyes, shine like flowers,
Or like the dew that lies for hours
Within their hearts, then it might be
I might find comfort here, although
Wistful, as if reproaching me,
Her sad eyes look, saying what none may know.
II
When midnight comes it brings a moon:
A scent is strewn
Of honey and wild-thorns broadcast
Beneath the stars. When I have passed
Under dark cedars, solemn pines,
Through dodder-drowned petunias,
Corn-flower and the columbine,
To where azaleas, choked with grass,
And peonies, like great wisps, shine,
I reach banked honeysuckle vines,
Piled deep and trammeled with the gourd
And morning-glory—one wild hoard
Of rich aroma—where the seat,
The rustic bench, where oft we sat,—
Now warped and old with rain and heat,—
Still stands upon its mossy mat:
And here I rest; and then—a word
I seem to hear;
A soft word whispered in my ear;
Her voice it seems; no thing is near;
I look around:—I have but heard
The plaintive note of some lost bird
Trickle through night,—awakened where,
'Neath its thick lair of twisted twigs,
The jarring and incessant grigs
Hum:—dream-drugged so, the haunted air
Makes all my soul as heavy as
Dew-poppied grass.
III
Once when the moon rose, fair and full,—
Like some sea-seen Hesperian pool,
A splash of gold through tangling trees,—
Or like the Island beautiful
Of Avalon in haunted seas,—
There came a sighing in the trees
As of sad lips; there was no breeze,
And yet sad sighings shook the trees.
And when, all in a mystic space,
Her orb swam, amiable white,
Right in that shattered casement, by
The broken porch the creepers lace,
Born of a moonbeam and a sigh,
I saw her face,
Pale through a mist of tears; so slight,
So immaterial, ah me!
In pensiveness, and vanished grace,
'Twas like an olden melody.
IV
I know long-angled on its floors,
Where windows face the anxious east,
The moonshine pours
White squares of glitter and, at least,
Gives glimmer to its whispering halls:
Its corridors,
Sleep-tapestried, are guled with bars
Of moonlight: by its wasted walls
Crouch shadows: and,—where streaked dusts lay
Their undisturbed, deep gray
Upon its stairs,—dim, vision-footed, glide
Faint gossamer gleams, like visible sighs,
As to and fro, athwart the skies,—
Wind-swung against the moon outside,—
The twisted branches sway
Of one great tree; I stand below,
And listen now,
Hearing a murmur come and go
Through its gnarled boughs; remembering how
Shady this chestnut made her room,
And sweet, in June, with plumes of bloom;
And how the broad and gusty flues
Of the old house sang when the rain let loose
Its winds, and each flue seemed a hoarse,
Sonorous throat, filled with the storm's wild boom,
And growled carousal; goblin tunes
The hylas pipe to rainy moons
Of March; or, in the afternoons
Of summer, singing in their course,—
Where blossoms drip,—all wet of back,—
The crickets drone in avenues
Of locusts leading to the gate.
And in the dark here where I wait
Meseems I hear the silence creep
And crepitate
From hall to hall; as one in sleep
I hear, yet hear not; feel that there
Her soul walks, waking on each stair
Strange echoes; and the stealthy crack
Of old and warping floors: I seem
To follow her; and in a dream
To see, yet see not; in the black
That drapes each room, my mind informs
With shapes, that hide behind each door
And fling from closets phantom arms.
V
I see her face, as once before,
Bewildered with its terror, pressed
To the dark, polished floor; distressed,
Clasped in her blind and covering hands;
So desolate with anguish, wrenched
With wild remorse, no man could see,
Could see and turn away like me,
No man that sees and understands
Love and its mortal agony.
Again, like some automaton,
Part of that ghostly tragedy,
Myself I see, the fool who fled,
Who sneered and fled. And then again
Came stealing back. Again, with blenched
And bending face I stand, and clenched
And icy hands, and staring eyes,
Looking upon her face, as wan
As water; eyes all wide with pain;
Cramped to dilation, packed with loss:
Again I seem to lean across
The years, and hear my heart's deep groan
Above the young gold of her head,
Above that huddled heap alone,—
Her, white and dead.
VI
Yes, there is moan
Of lamentation and hushed screams
In all its crannies; and sad shades
Haunt all its rooms, the moonlight braids,
With melancholy. Slow have flown
The weary years: and I have known
An anguish and remorse far worse
Than usual life's; and live, it seems,
Because to live is but a curse....
VII
There she lies buried; there! that ground
Gated with rusty iron, where
She and her stanch forefathers sleep;
So old, the turf scarce shows a mound;
So gray, you scarce distinguish there
A headstone where the ivies creep
And myrtles bloom. A wall of stone
Squares it around; a place for dreams;
A mossy spot of sorrow;—lone,
Nay, lonelier, wilder now it seems,
Though just the same: its roses waste
Their petals there as oft of yore;
Their placid petals, as before;
Pale, pensive petals: yonder some
Lie faint as puffs of foam
Within the moonlight, dimly traced
Beneath the boughs; some few are strown
On the usurping weeds, great grown
Around her tomb, on which two dead leaves lie....
Here let my sick heart break and die
Amid their wiltings, on her grave,
Here in her dim, old burying-ground
The druid cedars guard around
And roses and wild thorns. Alone
She shall not lie! Ah, let me moan
My life out here where rose-leaves fall,
And rest by her who was my all!
THE ELIXIR OF LOVE
He held it possible that he
Who idolizes one that's dead,
With that strange liquid instantly
Might raise them, living red:
And so he thought, "'Tis mine at last
To live and love the love that's past;
The joy without the grief and pain.
The dead shall live and love again."
For he had loved one till for him
Her face had grown his spirit-part:
Though dead, she seemed to him less dim
Than men in street and mart.
He labored on; for, truth to say,
In toil alone his pleasure lay,
His art, through which, sometime, he thought,
Back to his arms she would be brought.
He kept such trysts as phantoms keep,
Pale distances about his soul;
And moved like one who walks asleep,
Attaining no sure goal:
Yet blither than a younger heart
At crucible and glass retort
He labored; for his love was prism
To irisate toil's egoism.
He drained wan draughts from out a cup,
A globe of vague and flaming gold,
Held from the darkness, brimming up,
By something white and cold,
That wreathed faint fingers round its brim,
Slim flakes of foam; and, soft and dim,
Stooped out of fiery-bound abysses
To print his brow with icy kisses.
At last within his trembling hand
An ancient flask burnt, starry rose;
A liquid flame of ruby fanned,
Heart-like, with crimson throes:
And in the liquid, like a flower,
A starlike face bloomed for an hour,
Then slowly faded to a skull
With eyes that mocked the beautiful.
'Though all his life had been so strange,
Yet stranger now it seemed to be;—
What was it led him forth to range
'Mid graves and mystery?
What led him to that one dim tomb,
Where he could read within the gloom
The name of one who lay within
With all of silence, naught of sin?
Untainted, so it seemed, and made
By death's cold kisses still more fair,
He found her; raised her; softly laid
Her raven depths of hair
Upon his shoulder: and the pearls,
Around her neck and in her curls,
Less pale were than the kingly calm
Upon his face that showed no qualm.
And through the night, beneath the moon,
Across the windy hill, the gloom
Of forests where the leaves lay strewn,
He brought her to his room:
And in the awfulness of death,
That filled her wide eyes with its breath,
He set her in a carven chair
Where the still moon could kiss her hair.
One moment then he paused to think:
Then to her lips, all drawn and dead,
His strange elixir pressed and—"Drink!
Drink life and love!" he said.
And it—it drank; the dead drank slow:
And in its eyes there came a glow:
Yet still as stone its body sate,
With eyes of hell and lips of hate.
Still as fall-frozen ice its face,
And thin its voice as drizzled rain,
When in its rotting silk and lace
It rose and lived again:
Its bosom moved not while it spake;
Nor moved its lips; and half awake
Its eyes seemed with enchanted sleep
A century long in night's old keep.
And, stooping o'er, it whispered low—
A sound like a vibrating wire,
Or like the hiss of falling snow
In flutterings faint of fire:—
"In me, behold, you see your toil!
In me your love! A thing to coil
Around your life thus!—Make entire!—
The demon of your dead desire!"
GLORAMONE
The moonbeams on the hollies glow
Pale where she left me; and the snow
Lies bleak in moonshine on the graves,
Ribbed with each gust that shakes and waves
Ancestral cedars by her tomb....
She lay so beautiful in death,
My Gloramone,—whose loveliness
Death had not dimmed with all its doom,—
That, urged by my divine distress,
I sought her sepulchre: the gloom,
The iciness that takes the breath,
The sense of fear, were not too strong
To keep me from beholding long.
I stole into its sorrow; burst,
With what I know was hand accursed,
Its seal, the gated silence of
Her old armorial tomb: but love
Had sighed sweet romance to my heart;
And here, I thought, another part
Our souls would play. I did not start
When indistinctness of pale lips
Breathed on my hair; faint finger-tips
Fluttered their starlight on my brow;
When on my eyes, I knew not whence,
Vague kisses fell: then, like a vow,
Within my heart, an aching sense
Of vampire winning. And I heard
Her name slow-syllabled—a word
Of haunting harmony—and then
Low-whispered, "Thou! at last, 'tis thou!"
And sighs of shadowy lips again.
How madly strange that this should be!
For, had she loved me here on Earth,
It had not then been marvelous
That she should now remember me,
Returning love for love, though worth
Less, yes, far less to both of us.
And so I wondered, listening there:
How was it that her soul was brought
So near to mine now, whom in life
She hated so? And everywhere
About my life I thought and thought
And found no reason why her love
Should now be mine. We were at strife
Forever here; her hatred drove
Me to despair: I cast my glove
Into the frowning face of fate,
And lost her. Yea, it was her hate
That made her Appolonio's wife.
Her hate! her lovely hate!—for of
Her naught I found unlovely;—and
I felt she did not understand
My passion, and 'twere well to wait.
And now I felt her presence near,
I, full of life; yet knew no fear
There in the sombre silence, mark.
And it was dark, yes, deadly dark:
But when I slowly drew away
The pall, death modeled with her face,—
From her fair form it fell and lay
Rich in the dust,—the shrouded place
Was glittering daggered by the spark
Of one wild ruby at her throat,
Red-arrowed as a star with throbs
Of pulsing flame. And note on note
The night seemed filled with tenuous sobs
Of fire that flickered from that stone,
That, lustrous, lay against her throat,
Large as her eyes, and shadowy.
And standing by the dead alone
I marveled not that this should be.
The essence of an hundred stars,
Of fretful crimson, through and through
Its bezels beat, when, bending down
My hot lips pressed her mouth. And scars,
Aurora-scarlet, veiny blue,
Flame-hearted, blurred the midnight; and
The vault rang; and I felt a hand
Like fire in mine. And, lo, a frown
Broke up her face as gently as
The surface of a fountain's glass
A zephyr moves, that jolts the grass
Spilling its rain-drops. When this passed,
Through song-soft slumber, binding fast,
Slow smiles dreamed outward beautiful;
And with each smile I heard the dull
Deep music of her heart, and saw,
As by some necromantic law,
Faint tremblings of a lubric light
Flush her white temples and her throat:
And each long pulse was as a note,
That, gathering, like a strong surprise
With all of happiness, made sweet
With dim carnation in wild wise
The arch of her pale lips, and beat
Like moonlight from her head to feet.
I bent and kissed her once again:
And with that kiss it seemed that pain,
Which long had ached beneath her smile
And eyelids, vanished. In a while
I saw she breathed. Then, wondrous white,
Fair as she was before she died,
She rose upon the bier; a sight
To marvel at, whose truth belied
All fiction. Yet I saw her eyes
Grow wide unto my kiss,—like skies
Of starless dawn.—And all the fire
Of that dark ruby at her throat
Around her presence seemed to float,
A mist of rose, wherein like light
She moved, or music exquisite.
What followed then I scarcely know:
All I remember is, I caught
Her hand; and from the tomb I brought
Her beautiful: and o'er the snow,
Where moonbeams on the hollies glow,
I led her. But her feet no print
Left of their nakedness, no dint,
No faintest trace in frost. I thought,
"The moonlight fills them with its glow,
So soft they fall; or 'tis the snow
Covers them o'er!—the tomb was black,
And—this strong light blinds!"—Turning back
My eyes met hers; and as I turned,
Flashing centupled facets, burned
That ruby at her throat; and I
Studied its beauty for a while:
How came it there, and when, and why?
Who set it at her throat? Again,
Was it a ruby?—Pondering,
I stood and gazed. A far, strange smile
Filled all her face, and as with pain
I seemed to hear her speak, or sing,
These words, that meant not anything,
Yet more than any words may mean:
"Thy blood it is," she said; then sighed:
"See where thy heart's blood beateth! here
Thy heart's blood, that my lips did drain
In life; I live by still, unseen,
Long as thy passion shall remain.—
Canst thou behold and have no fear?—
Yea, if I am not dead, 'tis thou!—
Look how thy heart's blood flashes now!—
Blood of my life and soul, beat on!
Beat on! and fill my veins with dawn;
And heat the heart of me, his bride!"
And then she leaned against me, eyed
Like some white serpent, strangely still,
That binds one with its glittering stare,
That at wild stars hath gazed until
Its eyes have learned their golden glare.
And then I took her by the wrists
And drew her to me. Faintly felt
The shadow of her hair, whose mists
Were twilight-deep and dimly smelt
Of shroud and sepulchre. And she
Smiled on me with such sorcery
As well might win a soul from God
To Hell and torments. And I trod
On white enchantments and was long
A song and harp-string to a song,
Love's battle in my blood. And there,
Kissing her mouth, all unaware
The ruby loosened at her throat,
And, ere I wist, hung o'er my hand,
And on the brink I seemed to stand
Of something that cried out, "Admire
The beauty of this gem of fire,
Its witchcraft and its workmanship."
Then from her throat it seemed to slip,
And, in the hollow of my hand,
A rosy spasm, a bubble-boat
Of living flame, it seemed to float;
A fretful fire; a heart, fierce fanned
Of red convulsions. Like a brand,
A blaze, it touched me; seemed to run
Like fever through my pulses, swift,
Of torrid poison. One by one,
Now burning ice, now freezing sun,
I felt my veins swell. Then I felt
My palm brim up and overflow
With blood that, beads of oozing glow,
Dripped, drop by drop, upon the snow,
Like holly-berries on the snow.
Then something darkly seemed to melt
Within me, and I heard a sigh
So like a moan, 'twas as if years
Of anguish bore it; and the sky
Swam near me as when seen through tears—
And she was gone.... In ghostly gloom
Of dark, scarred pines a crumbling tomb
Loomed like a mist. Carved in its stone,
Above the grated portal deep,
Glimmered this legend:—
"Let her sleep,
Crowned with dim death, our lovely one,
Known here on Earth as Gloramone.
Our hearts bow down by her and weep,
And one sits weeping all alone."
THE IMAGE IN THE GLASS
I
The slow reflection of a woman's face
Grew, as by witchcraft, in the oval space
Of that strange glass on which the moon looked in:—
As cruel as death beneath the auburn hair
The dark eyes burned; and, o'er the faultless chin,—
Evil as night, yet as the daybreak fair,—
Rose-red and sensual smiled the mouth of sin.
II
The glorious throat and shoulders and, twin crests
Of snow, the splendid beauty of the breasts,
Filled soul and body with the old desire.—
Daughter of darkness! how could this thing be?
You, whom I loathed! for whom my heart's fierce fire
Had burnt to ashes of satiety!
You, who had sunk my soul in crime's red mire!
How came your image there? and in that room!
Where she, the all-adored, my life's sweet bloom,
Died poisoned! She, my scarcely one week's bride—
Yes, poisoned by a gift you sent to her,
Thinking her death would win me to your side.
It won me; yes! but.... Well, it made some stir—
By your own hand, I think, they said you died.
IV
Time passed. And then—was it the curse of crime,
That night of nights, which forced my feet to climb
To that locked bridal-room?—'Twas midnight when
A longing, like to madness, mastered me,
Compelled me to that chamber, which for ten
Long years was sealed: a dark necessity
To gaze upon—I knew not what again.
Love's ghost, perhaps. Or, in the curvature
Of that orbed mirror, something that might cure
The ache in me—some message, said perchance
Of her dead loveliness,—which once it glassed,—
That might repeat again my lost romance
In momentary pictures of the past,
While in its depths her image swam in trance.
VI
I did not dream to see the soulless eyes
Of you I hated; nor the lips where lies
And kisses curled: your features,—that were tuned
To all demonic,—smiling up as might
Some deep damnation! while ... my God! I swooned!...
Oozed slowly out, between the breasts' dead white,
The ghastly red of that wide dagger-wound.
THE LEGEND OF THE STONE
The year was dying, and the day
Was almost dead;
The west, beneath a sombre gray,
Was sombre red:
The gravestones in the ghostly light,
That glimmered there,
Seemed phantoms, wandering wan and white,
'Mid trees half bare.
I stood beside the grave of one
Who, here in life,
Was false to me; who had undone
My child and wife:
I stood beside his grave until
The moon came up—
It seemed the dark, unhallowed hill
Lifted a cup.
No stone was there to mark his grave,
No flower to grace—
'Twas meet that weeds alone should wave
In such a place:
I stood beside his grave until
The stars swam high,
And all the night was iron-still
From sky to sky.
What cared I though strange eyes glowed bright
Within the gloom!
Though, evil blue, a witch's-light
Burnt by each tomb!
Or that each crooked thorn-tree seemed
A hag, black-cloaked!
Or that the owl above me screamed,
The raven croaked!
I cursed him: cursed him when the day
Burnt sullen red;
Had cursed him when the west was gray,
And day was dead:
And now when night made dark the pole,
Both soon and late
I cursed his body, yea, and soul,
With th' hate of hate.
Once at my side I seemed to hear
A low voice say,—
"'Twere better to forgive,—and fear
Thy God,—and pray."
I laughed; and from pale lips of stone
On sculptured tombs
Wild laughter leapt, and then a moan
Swept through the glooms.
And then I felt a change—a force,
That seemed to seize
My body, like some fearful curse,
And, fastening, freeze
It downward, deeper than the knees,
Into the earth—
While still among the twisted trees
Rang mocking mirth.
And then I felt such fear, despair,
As lost ones feel,
When, knotted in their pitch-stiff hair,
They feel the steel
Of devils' forks lift up, through sleet
Of Hell's slant fire,
Then plunge,—as white from head to feet
I grew entire.
A voice without me, yet within,
As still as frost,
Intoned: "Thy sin is more than sin,
O damned and lost!
Behold, how God would punish thee
For this thy crime—
Thy crime of hate and blasphemy—
Through endless time!
"O'er him, whom thou wouldst not forgive,
Record what good
He did on Earth! and let him live
Loved, understood!
Be memory thine of all the worst
He did thine own!"...
There at the head of him I cursed
I stood—a stone.
THE RUINED MILL
On the wild South Fork of Harrod's Creek,
O'ergrown with creepers, if you should seek,
You will find an ancient water-mill
Of stone below a wooded hill.
Its weedy wheel is not less still
Than its image that sleeps in the grassy pool
Where the moccasin swims; and, slimly cool
Like streaks of light through blurs of sun,
The silver minnows and crawfish run.
So lone the place, in its sycamore
The blue crane builds; and from the shore
The shitepoke wanders about its door.
The burdock sprawls on its sill of pine;
And, in its pathway, eglantine
And blackberry tangle and intertwine;
Ox-daisies checker with pearl and gold
The bushy banks of its mill-race old;
The owl in its loft as safely lairs
As the fox in its cellar, that whelps and cares
Naught for the hunters who gallop by
With their baying hounds; the martins fly
Around its chimney and build therein;
And wasp and hornet, with murmurous din,
Plaster their nests, that none disturb,
On window-lintel and hopper-curb.
Once I stood in this old, stone mill,
Once as the day died over the hill,
And night came on; and stark and still
I met with phantoms upon its stairs;
Shadows, that took me unawares,
Eyed with fire and cowled with gloom—
Twilight phantoms, that crowded, dark,
Its dim interior, each eye a spark
Of sunset, creviced, within the room—
While a moist, chill, moldering, dead perfume
Of crumbling timbers and rotting grain,
On floors all warped with the sun and rain,
Made of the stagnant air a cell,
Round the cobwebbed rafters hung like a spell;
Making my mind, despite me, run
On thoughts of a hidden skeleton,
There in the walls; or, dripping dank,
Under the floor, 'neath a certain plank;
Glowering, grim in the mossy wet,
In its hollow eyes a dark regret.
I had entered when the evening-star
In the saffron heaven was sparkling afar,
In all its glory of light divine,
Like a diamond drowned in kingly wine;
And I stayed till the heavens hung low and gray,
And the clouds of the storm drove down and away,
Like the tattered leaves of an Autumn day;
And the wild rain beat on the rotting roof
The goblin dance of the Fiend's own hoof,
Till the spider dropped from its dusty woof;
And the thunder throbbed like a mighty heart;
And the wild wind filled each crannied part
Of the mill with moanings, that seemed to be
The voice of an ancient agony—
Till the beetle shrunk in its board of pine;—
While the lightning lit with its instant shine
The tossing terror of tree and vine ...
Then, all on a sudden, the storm was still—
And I saw her there, near the shattered sill,
At the window, gazing from the mill
Into the darkness under the storm;
Around her flickering hair and form
Unearthly glimmer. She seemed to lean
To the rushing waters that roared unseen:
A moment only she seemed to sway
Before me there in the lightning gray,
Then vanished utterly away:
Like a blown-out light....
And was it she,
The miller's daughter who died, they say,
Who flung herself on the mill's great wheel,
Long years ago, in her heart's despair?—
Or was it a dream, a fantasy,
That the place and the moment made me feel,
And imagination imaged there?
ON FLOYD'S FORK
When the hoot of the owl comes over the hill,
At twelve o'clock when the night is still,
And pale on the pool where the creek-frogs croon,
Glimmering gray is the light o' the moon;
And under the willows, where shadows lie,
The torch of the firefly wanders by;—
They say that the miller walks here, walks here,
All covered with chaff, with his crooked staff,
And his horrible hobble and hideous laugh;
The old, lame miller hung many a year:
When the hoot of the owl comes over the hill,
He walks in the night by Harrod's mill.
When the bark of the fox sounds lone on the hill,
At twelve o'clock when the night is chill
With the autumn wind, and the waters creep
Where the starlight fails and the shadows sleep;
And under the willows, that toss and moan,
The glow-worm kindles its lanthorn lone;—
They say that a woman floats dead, floats dead,
In a weedy space that the lilies lace,
A curse in her eyes and a smile on her face;
The miller's young wife with a gash in her head:
When the bark of the fox sounds lone on the hill,
She floats in the night by Harrod's mill.
When the howl of the hound comes over the hill,
At twelve o'clock when the night is ill,
And the thunder mutters and rain-winds sob,
And the foxfire glows like the lamp of a Lob;
And under the willows, that gloom and glance,
The will-o'-the-wisps hold a devil's-dance;—
They say that that crime is reacted again.
And each cranny and chink of the mill doth wink
With the light o' hell, or the lightning's blink,
And a woman's shrieks are heard through the rain:
When the howl of the hound comes over the hill,
No man will walk by Harrod's mill.