Classic Poem

The wood is cold, and dank, and green;
The trunks stand close in sullen row;
A crooked moon through a creeping screen
Of night-fog rots in the roots below.

The pool is thick, and dead, and green;
Its bubbles gleam the roots below;
To feed the slimy growths between
The slimy roots the ooze drips slow.

My feet can find no standing-place,
The monstrous trunk my arms grasp not;
Across the roots upon my face
I fall, and pray my soul can not.

And one came by, and bare a load —
An unstrange form — to where I lay;
Into the pool he cast his load:
" Look to it, " he said, and went away.

The thick scum closed; the body slid
Beneath the roots to where I lay,
And rose face up: I fain had hid
My eyes; their lids forgot the way.

And fain my hands had hid my face,
But could not quit their slimy hold;
Close to my face its loathly face
Uprose, and back its swathings rolled.

Its dead eyes woke and with mine met
Familiarly; at that I wept.
My tears fell big and fast, and set
More foulness forth the scum had kept.

And more I wept more foul it grew;
All else grew black, and my heart dropped down.
I had lain there for an age, I knew,
And must lie there till the body sank down.

Then One came by to where I lay;
He had heard my tears and come to me.
He had heard my tears (for I could not pray),
And pitied me, and had come to me.

He touched the body, and it sank down
Beyond my sight, though the pool was clear;
And the space above was a sapphire crown
Upon their heads, for the trees to wear.

He stood me up upon my feet,
And the trunks were dry and my hands were clean:
The breath of laughing leaves was sweet:
And he left me in this pleasant scene.