Twas only at Trimalchio's board A little skeleton made sign, An ivory plaything unabhorred, To bid the feasters to the wine. Gods, whom Art ever must avow, Ruled the marmoreal sky's demesne. Olympus yields to Calvary, now; Jupiter to the Nazarene! Voices are calling, "Pan is dead!" Dusk deepeneth within, without. On the black sheet of sorrow spread, The whitened skeleton gleams out. It glideth to the headstone bare, And signs it with a paraph wild, And hangs a wreath of bones to glare Upon the charnel death-defiled. It lifts the coffin-lid and quaffs The musty air, and peers within, Displays a ring of ribs, and laughs Forever with its awful grin. It urges unto Death's fleet dance The Emperor, the Pope, the King, And makes the pallid steed to prance, And low the doughty warrior fling;-- Behind the courtesan steals up, And makes wry faces in her glass; Drinks from the sick man's trembling cup; Delves in the miser's golden mass. Above the team it whirls the thong, With bone for goad to hurry it, Follows the plowman's way along, And guides the furrows to a pit. It comes, the uninvited guest, And lurks beneath the banquet chair, Unseen from the pale bride to wrest Her little silken garter fair. The number swells: the young give hand Unto the old, and none may flee. The irresistible saraband Compelleth all humanity. Forth speeds the tall, ungainly fright, Playing the rebeck, dancing mad, Against the dark a frame of white, As Holbein drew it--horror-sad;-- Or if the times be frivolous, Trusses the shroud about its hips: Then like a Cupid mischievous, Across the ballet-room it skips, And unto carven tombs it flies, Where marchionesses rest demure, Weary of love, in exquisite guise, In chapels dim and pompadour. But hide thy hideous form at last, Worm-eaten actor! Long enough In death's wan melodrama cast, Thou'st played thy part without rebuff. Come back, come back, O ancient Art! And cover with thy marble's gleam This Gothic skeleton! Each part Consume, ye flames of fire supreme! If man be then a creature made In God's own image, to aspire, When shattered must the image fade, Let the lone fragments feed the fire! Immortal form! Rise thou in flame Again to beauty's fount of bloom Let not thy clay endure the shame, The degradation of the tomb! BJORN'S BANQUET Bjorn, odd and lonely cenobite, High on a barren rock's plateau, Far out of time's and the world's sight, Dwells in a castle none may know. No modern thought may violate His darkened and secluded hall. Bjorn bolts with care his postern-gate, And barricades his castle wall. When others wait the rising sun, He from his mouldering parapet Still contemplates the valley dun, Where he beheld the red sun set. Securely doth the past enlock His retrospective spirit lone. The pendulum within his clock Was broken centuries agone. Waking the echoes wanders he Beneath his feudal arches drear, His ringing footsteps seemingly Followed by other footsteps clear.