Classic Poem

'T WAS on a fair May morning
That I buried the God of Love:
O'er his grave the sun was shining,
An acacia bloomed above.

By all the birds of heaven
Was his mournful requiem sung,
And the tiny God was buried
The lilies and roses among:

Among the roses and lilies
Of my own beloved one's breast:
The meadows were red with flowers,
Heav'n smiled from east to west.

And a melancholy memory
Was set to guard his grave:
What more acceptable funeral
Could the little dead God have?

Yet, alas, his tomb 's but a cradle
To a tiny bat-like thing!
For at nights when the moon is risen
Out from his grave he 'll spring,

And on to my burning temples
With outstretched wings doth leap,
And he fans them gently, gently,
Till he makes me fall asleep.

To my weary spirit the murmur
Of trees and a brook comes back,
And I see a fair white forehead
Smile out from a veil of black.

And so while he holds me gently
In the fetters of sleep oppressed,
He bites me twice—in my temples,
All sweat-bedewed, and my breast.

Love sucks the warm red life-blood,
So softly I feel no pain:
But my life is fading slowly,
Fading from heart and brain.

To imprison this evil vampire
So that he trouble me not,
I must open the grave where I laid him,
And a priest must bless the spot.

Then shall the spell be broken,
And the dead corpse crumble to dust:
And never again shall the demon
In my life-blood sate his lust.

My dead Love's grave is thy bosom,
I will open it, lady fair:
For fain would mine eyes behold him,
The wee God, lying there.

That at last he be dust and ashes
I long to have some sure sign:
Disdain shall be my priest, dear,
And my holy water—wine.