Classic Poem

A great black cloud from heaven's midmost height
Hangs all to eastward roofing half the world,
Whereunder in vast shadow stretches furled
A waste, meseems, where never leaf nor light
Might be, but only darkness infinite,
Where the lost heroes of old dreams oppressed
Might still be wandering on some dolorous quest,
A land of witchcraft and accursed blight.
Lapping the border of that huge distress,
A pallid stream from valleys gnarled and dim
Comes creeping with a Stygian silentness;
While yonder southward at the cloud's last rim
Antares from the Scorpion burns afar,
With surge and baleful gleam, the fierce red star!