 | |
| |
| Midnight has come and the great Christ Church bell |
| And many a lesser bell sound through the room; |
| And it is All Souls' Night. |
| And two long glasses brimmed with muscatel |
| 5 | Bubble upon the table. A ghost may come; |
| For it is a ghost's right, |
| His element is so fine |
| Being sharpened by his death, |
| To drink from the wine-breath |
| 10 | While our gross palates drink from the whole wine. |
| |
| I need some mind that, if the cannon sound |
| From every quarter of the world, can stay |
| Wound in mind's pondering, |
| As mummies in the mummy-cloth are wound; |
| 15 | Because I have a marvellous thing to say, |
| A certain marvellous thing |
| None but the living mock, |
| Though not for sober ear; |
| It may be all that hear |
| 20 | Should laugh and weep an hour upon the clock. |
| |
| Horton's the first I call. He loved strange thought |
| And knew that sweet extremity of pride |
| That's called platonic love, |
| And that to such a pitch of passion wrought |
| 25 | Nothing could bring him, when his lady died, |
| Anodyne for his love. |
| Words were but wasted breath; |
| One dear hope had he: |
| The inclemency |
| 30 | Of that or the next winter would be death. |
| |
| Two thoughts were so mixed up I could not tell |
| Whether of her or God he thought the most, |
| But think that his mind's eye, |
| When upward turned, on one sole image fell; |
| 35 | And that a slight companionable ghost, |
| Wild with divinity, |
| Had so lit up the whole |
| Immense miraculous house |
| The Bible promised us, |
| 40 | It seemed a gold-fish swimming in a bowl. |
| |
| On Florence Emery I call the next, |
| Who finding the first wrinkles on a face |
| Admired and beautiful, |
| And by foreknowledge of the future vexed; |
| 45 | Diminished beauty, multiplied commonplace; |
| Preferred to teach a school |
| Away from neighbour or friend, |
| Among dark skins, and there |
| Permit foul years to wear |
| 50 | Hidden from eyesight to the unnoticed end. |
| |
| Before that end much had she ravelled out |
| From a discourse in figurative speech |
| By some learned Indian |
| On the soul's journey. How it is whirled about |
| 55 | Wherever the orbit of the moon can reach, |
| Until it plunge into the sun; |
| And there, free and yet fast, |
| Being both Chance and Choice, |
| Forget its broken toys |
| 60 | And sink into its own delight at last. |
| |
| I call MacGregor Mathers from his grave, |
| For in my first hard spring-time we were friends, |
| Although of late estranged. |
| I thought him half a lunatic, half knave, |
| 65 | And told him so, but friendship never ends; |
| And what if mind seem changed, |
| And it seem changed with the mind, |
| When thoughts rise up unbid |
| On generous things that he did |
| 70 | And I grow half contented to be blind! |
| |
| He had much industry at setting out, |
| Much boisterous courage, before loneliness |
| Had driven him crazed; |
| For meditations upon unknown thought |
| 75 | Make human intercourse grow less and less; |
| They are neither paid nor praised. |
| but he'd object to the host, |
| The glass because my glass; |
| A ghost-lover he was |
| 80 | And may have grown more arrogant being a ghost. |
| |
| But names are nothing. What matter who it be, |
| So that his elements have grown so fine |
| The fume of muscatel |
| Can give his sharpened palate ecstasy |
| 85 | No living man can drink from the whole wine. |
| I have mummy truths to tell |
| Whereat the living mock, |
| Though not for sober ear, |
| For maybe all that hear |
| 90 | Should laugh and weep an hour upon the clock. |
| |
| Such thought — such thought have I that hold it tight |
| Till meditation master all its parts, |
| Nothing can stay my glance |
| Until that glance run in the world's despite |
| 95 | To where the damned have howled away their hearts, |
| And where the blessed dance; |
| Such thought, that in it bound |
| I need no other thing, |
| Wound in mind's wandering |
| 100 | As mummies in the mummy-cloth are wound. |
