Part 3 (2/2)
That's the sob and drip of a leaky drain?
But it sounds like another noise we know!
The heavy drops drummed red and slow, The drops ran down as slow as fate-- Do ye hear them still?--it was long ago!-- But here in the shadows I wait, I wait!
Spirits there be that pa.s.s in peace; Mine pa.s.sed in a whorl of wrath and dole; And the hour that your choking breath shall cease I will get my grip on your naked soul-- Nor pity may stay nor prayer cajole-- I would drag ye whining from h.e.l.l's own gate: To me, to me, ye must pay the toll!
And here in the shadows I wait, I wait!
The dead they are dead, they are out of the way?
And a ghost is the whim of an ailing mind?
Then why did ye whiten with fear to-day When ye heard a voice in the calling wind?
Why did ye falter and look behind At the creeping mists when the hour grew late?
Ye would see my face were ye stricken blind!
And here in the shadows I wait, I wait!
Drink and forget, make merry and boast, But the boast rings false and the jest is thin-- In the hour that I meet ye ghost to ghost, Stripped of the flesh that ye skulk within, Stripped to the coward soul 'ware of its sin, Ye shall learn, ye shall learn, whether dead men hate!
Ah, a weary time has the waiting been, But here in the shadows I wait, I wait!
A NIGHTMARE
LEAGUES before me, leagues behind, Clamor warring wastes of flood, All the streams of all the worlds Flung together, mad of mood; Through the canon beats a sound, Regular of interval, Distant, drumming, m.u.f.fled, dull, Thunderously rhythmical;
Crafts slip by my startled soul-- Soul that cowers, a thing apart-- They are corpuscles of blood!
That's the throbbing of a heart!
G.o.d of terrors!--am I mad?-- Through my body, mine own soul, Shrunken to an atom's size, Voyages toward an unguessed goal!
THE MOTHER
THE mother by the gallows-tree, The gallows-tree, the gallows-tree, (While the twitching body mocked the sun) Lifted to Heaven her broken heart And called for sympathy.
Then Mother Mary bent to her, Bent from her place by G.o.d's left side, And whispered: ”Peace--do I not know?-- My son was crucified!”
”O Mother Mary,” answered she, ”You cannot, cannot enter in To my soul's woe--you cannot know-- For your son wrought no sin!”
(And men whose work compelled them there, Their hearts were stricken dead;
They heard the rope creak on the beam; I thought I heard the frightened ghost Whimpering overhead.)
The mother by the gallows-tree, The gallows-tree, the gallows-tree, Lifted to Christ her broken heart And called in agony.
Then Lord Christ bent to her and said: ”Be comforted, be comforted; I know your grief; the whole world's woe I bore upon my head.”
<script>