Classic Poem

Part I.

1

Like as a dream it came to me
In the lapse of a lonely year;
In the shade of night I saw the shade
Of a shrouded maid appear;
And drawing nigh it leaned o'er me,
And whisper'd in my ear:

2

" Cold — cold!
I come from the ghastly cold!
Where the dead are ever dying
Alone in the ghastly cold! "

3

And then, as if in agony
Constrain'd that gruesome haze,
Its words come forth in hollow sighs,
The while its eyes did blaze
Pale lightnings to my own, now fix'd
In helpless dire amaze:

4

" I am a starveling out of Hell,
A wraith of the restless dead,
And whence the damn'd lie damn'd the most
My riven ghost hath fled
For lust of the radiant life in thee,
And the fume of thy heart so red!

5

" I lust for thy blood and the life of thy blood
But I love thy soul as well,
For the flame of it lit my own anew,
This thing is true I tell;
And the beating of thy heart it was
That loos'd me out of Hell.

6

" For out of the sleep I cannot sleep
Thy soul was roused again;
And thy body was wrought to the same fair mould
As when of old 'twas lain
Within the dust away from me —
The body that I had slain.

7

" O black the night that swallow'd me
When out of the World I fell!
Out of the World, and deep entomb'd,
I found me doom'd to dwell
Where Time is still and Horror stares
On each — immovable.

8

" Cold — cold!
Alone in the ghastly cold!
Where the dead are ever dying
Alone in the ghastly cold!

9

" Nay, listen! I heard like far-off sounds
Sway down thro' the lees of crime;
And golden was their echoing,
They seem'd to ring a chime
Or words I said — of love I felt —
Long since — in the other time.

10

" And echoing they took a shape,
And circled round and round
As airy, elemental elves,
Then joined themselves and wound
In wreathing ether over me,
And with a crystal sound,

11

" The circle touch'd complete and flash'd
And vanish'd suddenly;
And Time began again — I found
Myself unbound and free —
Free of the silent Horror there
That stared and stared at me.

12

" And I was in the outer night,
And I sought and found thee here;
I saw thy body from afar
As a living star appear,
And fain to drink and slumber in
Its crimson atmosphere — "

13

No other word came audible,
The shade 'gan withering,
As to my cold and shuddering side
It vainly tried to cling;
Then drifted slow away from me,
A wasting, wistful thing.

14

Until in the eerie light at last
I saw it fade and seem
To sink as it were thro' an ancient grave,
And sinking it gave a scream;
And I awoke and tried to think
'Twas but a passing dream.

15

Cold — cold!
And are the dead so cold?
And are they ever dying
Alone in the ghastly cold?