A Fantasy

A fantasy that came to me
    As wild and wantonly designed
As ever any dream might be
    Unraveled from a madman's mind, -
A tangle-work of tissue, wrought
    By cunning of the spider-brain,
    And woven, in an hour of pain,
To trap the giddy flies of thought.

I stood beneath a summer moon
    All swollen to uncanny girth,
And hanging, like the sun at noon,
    Above the center of the earth;
    But with a sad and sallow light,
    As it had sickened of the night
And fallen in a pallid swoon.
Around me I could hear the rush
    Of sullen winds, and feel the whir
Of unseen wings apast me brush
    Like phantoms round a sepulcher;
And, like a carpeting of plush,0
    A lawn unrolled beneath my feet,
    Bespangled o'er with flowers as sweet
    To look upon as those that nod
    Within the garden-fields of God,
    But odorless as those that blow
    In ashes in the shades below.

And on my hearing fell a storm
    Of gusty music, sadder yet
    Than every whimper of regret
That sobbing utterance could form,
    And patched with scraps of sound that seemed
    Torn out of tunes that demons dreamed,
    And pitched to such a piercing key,
    It stabbed the ear with agony;
    And when at last it lulled and died,
    I stood aghast and terrified.
I shuddered and I shut my eyes,
    And still could see, and feel aware
    Some mystic presence waited there;
And staring, with a dazed surprise,
    I saw a creature so divine
    That never subtle thought of mine
    May reproduce to inner sight
    So fair a vision of delight.

A syllable of dew that drips
From out a lily's laughing lips
Could not be sweeter than the word
I listened to, yet never heard. -
For, oh, the woman hiding there
Within the shadows of her hair,
Spake to me in an undertone
So delicate, my soul alone
But understood it as a moan
Of some weak melody of wind
A heavenward breeze had left behind.

A tracery of trees, grotesque
    Against the sky, behind her seen,
Like shapeless shapes of arabesque
    Wrought in an Oriental screen;
And tall, austere and statuesque
    She loomed before it - e'en as though
    The spirit-hand of Angelo
    Had chiseled her to life complete,
    With chips of moonshine round her feet.
And I grew jealous of the dusk,
    To see it softly touch her face,
    As lover-like, with fond embrace,
It folded round her like a husk:
But when the glitter of her hand,
    Like wasted glory, beckoned me,
    My eyes grew blurred and dull and dim -
    My vision failed - I could not see -
I could not stir - I could but stand,
    Till, quivering in every limb,
    I flung me prone, as though to swim
    The tide of grass whose waves of green
    Went rolling ocean-wide between
    My helpless shipwrecked heart and her
    Who claimed me for a worshiper.

And writhing thus in my despair,
    I heard a weird, unearthly sound,
    That seemed to lift me from the ground
And hold me floating in the air.
I looked, and lo!    I saw her bow
    Above a harp within her hands;
A crown of blossoms bound her brow,
    And on her harp were twisted strands
Of silken starlight, rippling o'er
With music never heard before
By mortal ears; and, at the strain,
I felt my Spirit snap its chain
And break away, - and I could see
It as it turned and fled from me
To greet its mistress, where she smiled
To see the phantom dancing wild
And wizard-like before the spell
Her mystic fingers knew so well.