Over me too steals sleep. Sleep like a white mist on the rotting paintings of cupids and gods on the ceiling; Sleep on the carven shields and knots at the foot of the bed, Oozing, blurring outlines, obliterating colors, Death. Father, Father, I must not sleep! It does not hear -- that shadow crouched in the corner... Is it a shadow? One might think so indeed, save for the calm face, yellow as wax, that lifts like the face of a drowned man from the choking darkness. II. Out of the drowsy fog my body creeps back to me. It is the white time before dawn. Moonlight, watery, pellucid, lifeless, ripples over the world. The grass beneath it is gray; the stars pale in the sky. The night dew has fallen; An infinity of little drops, crystals from which all light has been taken, Glint on the sighing branches. All is purity, without color, without stir, without passion. Suddenly a peacock screams. My heart shocks and stops; Sweat, cold corpse-sweat Covers my rigid body. My hair stands on end. I cannot stir. I cannot speak. It is terror, terror that is walking the pale sick gardens And the eyeless face no man may see and live! Ah-h-h-h-h! Father, Father, wake! wake and save me! In his corner all is shadow. Dead things creep from the ground. It is so long ago that she died, so long ago! Dust crushes her, earth holds her, mold grips her. Fiends, do you not know that she is dead?... "Let us dance the pavon!" she said; the waxlights glittered like swords on the polished floor. Twinkling on jewelled snuffboxes, beaming savagely from the crass gold of candelabra, From the white shoulders of girls and the white powdered wigs of men... All life was that dance. The mocking, resistless current, The beauty, the passion, the perilous madness -- As she took my hand, released it and spread her dresses like petals, Turning, swaying in beauty, A lily, bowed by the rain, -- Moonlight she was, and her body of moonlight and foam, And her eyes stars. Oh the dance has a pattern! But the clear grace of her thrilled through the notes of the viols, Tremulous, pleading, escaping, immortal, untamed, And, as we ended, She blew me a kiss from her hand like a drifting white blossom -- And the starshine was gone; and she fled like a bird up the stair. Underneath the window a peacock screams, And claws click, scrape Like little lacquered boots on the rough stone. Oh the long fantasy of the kiss; the ceaseless hunger, ceaselessly, divinely appeased! The aching presence of the beloved's beauty! The wisdom, the incense, the brightness!