Classic Poem

Under the bright room where they lay,
Deep in the stonework gaunt and grey,
I will build a dungeon grim.
She and her lover (I stabbed him dead,
And his blood-drops splashed her breast with red)
Shall rest in the darkness dim.
Under the bright room where they lay
They shall wait in the dark till the Judgment Day
Flames out upon her and him.

( How it goes ring, ringing, through my brain ,
That foolish light old swift refrain
She was singing when we met in Spain;
“I love you, I love you—” again and again!)

My hands may tremble. I will not shrink.
Clink goes the trowel. Clink! clink! clink!
Clink! clink! clink!

Under the bright room where they slept
Till up from the sea the gold sun leapt,
In sunless darkness deep
They shall rest till the solemn trump of doom
Shakes the walls of their wedding-room
And summons their souls from sleep.
White by his couch her form shall stand,
And her lips shall struggle to kiss his hand
And her eyes shall strive to weep.

(How I remember the linkling stream
And the night that passed in a maddening dream—
The room where we slept, and the pale moonbeam,
And her eyes with their wonderful passionate gleam!)

Death's cup is ready. Her lips shall drink.
Clink goes the trowel. Clink! clink! clink!
Clink! clink! clink!

Under the bright room where they lay
I will build a dungeon, and no day
Shall ever enter there.
I will take her, stately and lovely—so
That the heart of a god might madden and glow
With love of her thick black hair:
Then, brick by brick and stone by stone,
I will build her up in the vault, alone
With the man her eyes found fair.

(Darling—“the gnat has stung the white
Of your beautiful arm,” so I said in the night:
“Lay your arm in the moon's soft light;
Let me suck the poison out—my right!”)

I will not pause to remember or think.
Clink goes the trowel. Clink! clink! clink!
Clink! clink! clink!

Under the bright room where they lay,
The room that looks on the sunny bay,
I have built a sunless tomb.
There my darling and he shall be wed.
I stabbed him—curse him! He lies there dead,
Stark on a couch in the gloom.
Down in the dark she shall live with him:
They shall kiss in the dark, till their eyes grow dim
And their lustful limbs consume.

(I loved her so. Oh, my raven hair
And the beautiful throat I found so fair!
I loved you—a girl with shoulders bare—
And I love you still. That means despair.)

I work. I sever the past's last link.
Clink goes the trowel. Clink! clink! clink!
Clink! clink! clink!

Under their bright room, far below,
Where the grass spreads rank and the mosses grow,
She shall stand and feast her eyes
On the corpse of the man she loved so well,
Till she starves to a corpse in the vault's dim hell
And, grasping her dead man, dies.
Outside, the butterflies white will race,
And the girls will pass to the market-place,
Singing under the sunny skies.
Step into the tomb, my lady fair.
Your death-cold lover is waiting there
With a brave true kiss for the thick black hair,
Such a brave true kiss for the thick black hair
(Clink! clink! clink!)