Classic Poem

Down in Hell's gilded street,
Snow dances fleet and sweet,
Bright as a parakeet,

Or Punchinello,
All glistening yellow,
As fruit-jewels mellow,

Glittering white and black
As the swan's glassy back
On the Styx' soundless track,

Sharp as bird's painted bill,
Pecking fruit, sweet and shrill,
On a dark window-sill.

See the glass house as smooth
As a wide puppet-booth. . . .
Snow strikes it like a sooth

Melon-shaped mandoline
With the sharp tang and sheen
Of flames that cry, " Unclean!"

Dinah with scarlet ruche,
Gay-plumaged Fanfreluche,
Watch shrill as Scaramouche

In the huge house of glass
Old shadows bent, alas!
On ebon sticks now pass —

Lean on a shadow boy,
Creep like a broken toy —
Wooden and painted joy.

Trains sweep the empty floors —
Pelongs and pallampores,
Bulchauls and sallampores,

Soundless as any breeze
(Amber and orangeries)
From isles in Indian seas.

Black spangled veils falling
(The cold is appalling),
They wave fans; hear calling

The adder-flames shrieking slow,
Stinging bright fruitlike snow,
Down in the street below;

While an ape, with black spangled veil,
Plum'd headdress, face dust-pale,
Scratch'd with a fingernail

Sounds from a mandoline,
Tuneless and sharp as sin:
Shutters whose tang and sheen,

Shrieking all down the scale,
Seem like the flames that fail
Under that onyx nail,

Light as snow dancing fleet,
Bright as a parakeet,
Down in Hell's empty street.