Classic Poem

It is a night of summer: overhead
Pale stars are slumbering in a liquid sky;
And from the journeying moon blue splendours spread
O'er breathing earth and sea's serenity.
I hear a kissing ripple on some shore
Unseen, not far below me: thick and high
Shoot laurel boughs above: the marble floor,
Laid smooth and cool beneath, like frozen snow,
Gives back no sound; as from the gilded door
Furtive I steal, and with hushed footsteps slow
Glide through the palace between painted wall
And pillared aisle and flowering shrubs arow.
Where am I? Thwart my path dim glimmerings fall
From one tall narrow portal: onward still
It lures me breathless through a silent hall:
Still onward: sense and thought and shrinking will
Are drawn by irresistible control
Unto that core of light that sharp and chill
Shines like the loadstar of my shuddering soul.
Yet would I fain draw back: all is so dark,
So ominously tranquil; and the goal
To which I tend is but one tiny spark
Cleaving the dreamy twilight terrible.
What sound? Nay, quiver not! The watch dogs bark
Far off in farm-yards where men slumber well.
Here stillness broods; save when a cricket chirrs,
Or wheeling on slant wing the black bat shrill
Utters her thin sharp scream. No night wind stirs
The sleeping foliage of the stately bays.
Forward I venture. On warm silky furs
My feet fall muffled now; and now I raise
The latchet of the door that stands ajar.
I enter: with a fixed and frozen gaze
What is within I reckon: — near and far,
Things small and great, sights terrible and strange,
Alike in equal vision, on that bar
Of blackness standing, with firm eyes I range.
It is a narrow room: walls high and straight
Enclose it: here the lights that counterchange
Pale midnight shadows, scarce can penetrate
The fretwork of far rafters rough with gold.
The lamps are silver — Cupids love-elate
Upraising cressets: phallic horns that hold
Pure essences and oils. From gloom profound
Shine shapes of mural gods and heroes old,
Gleaming with hues auroral on the ground
Of ebon blackness: Hylas, Hyacinth,
And heaven-rapt Ganymede: — I know them. Crowned
With lilies dew-bedrenched upon a plinth
Of jasper stands Uranian Love, a god
Carved out of marble for some labyrinth
Of Academic grove where sages trod: —
Here, breathless, in his beauty-bloom, he smiled,
Making more grim the ghastly solitude.
Amid the chamber was a table piled
With fruits and flowers. Thereon there blazed a cup,
Sculptured of sardonyx, where Maenads wild
With wine and laughter, shrieking, seemed to sup
The blood of mangled Pentheus: it was full
Of dark Falernian; the draught bubbling up
From blackness into crimson, rich and cool,
Glowed in the bowl untasted. Wreathes of rose,
Such as the shepherd lads of Paestum pull,
Circled two smaller murrhine cups: but these
Were empty, and no hand the flowers had shed.
Then was I ware how neath the gleaming rows
Of cressets a fair ivory couch was spread:
Rich Tyrian silks and gauzes hyaline
Were bound with jewelled buckles to the bed:
Thereon I saw a naked form supine.
It was a youth from foot to forehead laid
In slumber. Very white and smooth and fine
Were all his limbs; and on his breast there played
The lambent smiles of lamplight. But a pool
Of blood beneath upon the pavement stayed.
There, where blue cups of lotos-lilies cool
With reeds into mosaic-wreathes were blent,
The black blood grew and curdled; and the wool
Whereon his cloudy curls were pillowed, sent
Thick drops slow-soaking down o'er gold and gem.
Yet was the raiment ruffled not nor rent.
Spell-bound I crept, and closer gazed at him:
And lo! from side to side his throat was gashed
With some keen blade; and every goodly limb,
With marks of crisped fingers marred and lashed,
Told the fierce strain of tyrannous lust that here
Life's crystal vase of youth divine had dashed.
It is enough. Those glazed eyes, wide and clear;
Those lips by frantic kisses bruised; that cheek
Whereon foul teeth-dints blackened; the tense fear
Of that white innocent forehead; — vain and weak
Are words, unutterably weak and vain,
To paint how madly eloquent, how meek,
Were those mute signs of dire soul-shattering pain!