Wooingly silence whispered to me there Through boughs of dripping darkness sad with rain; Darkness, that met my eyeballs everywhere, Blind-packed and vacant as a madman's brain. And so I stood and heard the dead leaves drain, And through the leaves the haunted wind that hissed; Then suddenly--perhaps it was the strain Snapped in my temples--laughter seemed to twist, With evil, night's dead mouth that bent to mine and kissed.
Insanity! two leaves that dabbled down, Touched me with drizzle; and that laugh--ah, well, No laugh! an owlet hooting at the frown Night's hag-face tortures while she works her spell. Yet I had sworn, before those kisses fell Like winter on me, black as broken jet, An occult blackness like the Prince of Hell, A woman's hand had brushed my face--and yet, A bat it might have been made mad with wind and wet.
And stark I stood among the sodden stones, Icy with fever, hearing in each gale Strange footsteps,--while within my soul were moans For strength,--as powerless as I was pale. Then I remembered that within a tale Once I had read--a chronicle of ills Cowled monks had written--how one shall not fail To find, unsought, the Fiend, if so he wills, Cloak, cap, and cock's crook'd plume among the lonely hills.
Was _that_ his laugh? and _that_ his vulture hand?-- No! no! for in the legend it was said, "Though moonless midnight curse the barren land Sathanas' shadow follows him as red As Hell's red cauldron is."--My terror fled, Remembering this.--How sad a fool was I To dream Hell's wickedness would bow his head By mine, and parley with me, lie for lie, With cunning scrutiny of oblong eye by eye!
Then, then I felt--_her_ presence! all awake Unto her power that could lift or sink; And her straight eyes controlling, like an ache, My brain that had no mastery to think, Or to perform. And slowly, link on link, She bound me helpless, like an inquisitor, In vasty dungeons of the soul; no wink Of light was there, but darkness, bar on bar, Self-convoluted chaos strangling will's high star.
"I am the mother of uneaseful sleep, The child of night and sister of dim death; Who knoweth me, yea, he shall never weep, Yet bless and ban me in a single breath: Who knoweth me a coward is unneth: And saddest hearts have sought me over glad To find gray comfort where the preacher saith There is no comfort. Melancholy mad, Reach me thy hand and know me if thy heart be sad."