Hark, as a hammer on a coffin falls

A knock upon the door! The colours wane,

The dreams vanish! And leave that foul white scar,

Tattoo'd with dreadful marks, the old calendar

Blotching the blistered walls!

The winter whistles thro' a shivered pane,

And scatters on the bare boards at my feet

These poor soiled manuscripts, torn, incomplete...

The scent of opium floats about my breath;

But Time resumes his dark and hideous reign;

And, with him, hideous memories troop, I know.

Hark, how the battered clock ticks, to and fro,—

Life, Death—Life, Death—Life, Death—

O fool to cry! O slave to bow to pain,

Coward to live thus tortured with desire

By demon nerves in hells of sensual fire.

THE MYSTIC

With wounds out-reddening every moon-washed rose

King Love went thro' earth's garden-close!

From that first gate of birth in the golden gloom,

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