Midnight

Is it a dream ? The mid-moon's Ugbt
Flung sheer athwart the misty nighty
Opened long reaches to my sight,
Faint with the quivering delight

Of moon-lit mist
And but for this, that here and there
The moon made clear the tremulous air.
The mist hung silent everywhere.
And ugly things were changed to &ir,
Enrobed, and kissed.

And as I passed, I saw the place
Was filled with tombs (then, for a space.
The moon had torn the mist's frail lace).
Me seemed some prehistoric race

Had reared these stones
In days when Ocean's river ran
Around the earth ; for now no man

41

With all his new-found servants can
Uprear such slabs by spell or ban
To hold his bones.

But even these could not defy
Time's mightier hand, for some did lie
All shattered, and some, still on high.
Half tottered as I wandered by,

Yet stood upright.
And then I saw a mightier tomb
Half ruined ; an abyss of gloom
Yawned in the midst, and in the room
Of stones I saw a shadow loom —

A shade of light.

I saw more clearly as I neared
The riven ruin; the mist veered
A little, and the moon shone weird
Upon a skeleton that leered

From out the gloom; —
Then wrote upon the prostrate door
That lay upon the ground before

42

My feet, the moonlight glancing o'er,
While steadfastly mine eyes did pore :
" Nought — but the tomb I "

I turned, and slowly walked away
Into a garden fair, that lay
Hard by, with birds and flowers gay,
Sweet with the sounds and scents of May,

Where joy was rife ;
I sat me down and bound my head
With garlands fitted for the dead,
And to my love of loves I said :
'' We may forget, when life has sped.

This dream of life."