Classic Poem

The night was cloyed with flowers
In the darkness deep and sweet,
When, at the window of the World,
I heard the dancing feet;
And viol and tambour
Made musical the air,
While yet a voice within me cried,
Beware!

My eyes upon the glow were set
From out that thorny grot:
I hungered for the lips and eyes
And hearts remembering not;
And still the thrill and thud beat on
With sorcery in the air;
And, luring, leaping, called to me,
Beware!

O all you hapless souls, like birds
Within night's branching may,
Hearken the words of him who speaks,
And fly from hence — away.
These dancers with their wiles and gauds,
That music on the air —
'Tis the swart Fowler with his nets
To play you false, though fair;
Hearken — an outcast I — I cry,
Beware!