In nature, dead, the life gods stir, From Rhadamanthus and the Isles, Where Saturn rules the Age of Gold, Come old, old ghosts of bygone gods; While dim mists earth's outlines blur, And drip all night from lichen-greened roof-tiles. In men's hearts the mad gods rise And fill the streets with revelling, With torchlight that glances on frozen pools, With tapers starring the thick-fogged night, A-dance, like strayed fireflies, 'Mid dim mad throngs who Saturn's orisons sing. In driven clouds the old gods come, When fogs the face of Apollo have veiled; A fear of things, unhallowed, strange, And a fierce free joy flares in the land. Men mutter runes in language dead, By night, with rumbling drum, In quaking groves where the woodland spirits are hailed. To earth's brood of souls of old, With covered heads and aspen wands, Mist-shrouded priests do ancient rites; The black ram's fleece is stained with blood, That steams, dull red on the frozen ground; And pale votaries shiver with the cold, That numbs the earth, and etches patterned mirrors on the ponds. "WHAN THAT APRILLE ..." Is it the song of a meadow lark Off the brown, sere salt marshes, Or the eager patches in dooryards Of yellow and pale lilac crocuses; Or else the suburban street golden with sunlight, And the bare branches of elm trees Twined in the delicate sky? Or is it the merry piping Of a distant hurdy-gurdy?-- That makes me so weary and faint with desire For strange lands and new scents; For the rough-rhythmed clank Of train couplings at night, And the stormy, gay-tinted sunrises That shade with purple the contours Of far-off, unfamiliar hills. NIGHT PIECE A silver web has the moon spun, A silver web upon all the sky, Where the frail stars quiver, every one Like tangled gnats that hum and die. The moon has tangled the dull night In her silver skein and set alight Each dew-damp branch with milky flame. And huge the moon broods on the night. My soul is caught in the web of the moon, Like a shrilling gnat in a spider's web. Importunate memories shrill in my ears Like the gnats that die in the spider web. Lovely as death, in the moon's shroud, Were town streets, grey houses, dim, Full of strange peace in the silent night. As we walked our footsteps clattered loud. We felt the night as a troubled song ... Oh, the triumphing sense of life a-throb. Behind those walls, in those dark streets, Like the sound of a river, swift, unseen, Flowing in darkness. Oh, the hoarse Half-heard murmur swirling beneath The snowy beauty of moonlight....