The Star-Treader and Other Poems

Turn round, O Life, and know with eyes aghast
The breast that fed thee—Death, disguiseless, stern;
Even now, within thy mouth, from tomb and urn,
The dust is sweet. All nurture that thou hast
Was once as thou, and fed with lips made fast
On Death, whose sateless mouth it fed in turn.
Kingdoms debased, and thrones that starward yearn,
All are but ghouls that batten on the past.
Monstrous and dread, must it fore'er abide,
This unescapable alternity?
Must loveliness find root within decay,
And night devour its flaming hues alway?
Sickening, will Life not turn eventually,
Or ravenous Death at last be satisfied?

SHADOW OF NIGHTMARE

What hand is this, that unresisted grips
My spirit as with chains, and from the sound
And light of dreams, compels me to the bound
Where darkness waits with wide, expectant lips?
Albeit thereat my footing holds, nor slips,
The threats of that Omnipotence confound
All days and hours of gladness, girt around
With sense of near, unswervable eclipse.
So lies a land whose noon is plagued with whirr
Of bats, than their own shadows swarthier,
Whose flight is traced on roofs of white abodes,
Wherein from court to court, from room to room,
In hieroglyphics of abhorrent doom,
Is slowly trailed the slime of crawling toads.

THE SONG OF A COMET