Part 6

I dare not laugh ... a rising swell Of laughter breaks in shrieks somewhere-- No doubt they relish it in Hell, This cosmic jest of Earth at prayer!

SHADOWS

HAUNTED

(THE GHOST SPEAKS)

A GHOST is the freak of a sick man's brain? Then why do ye start and shiver so? That's the sob and drip of a leaky drain? But it sounds like another noise we know! The heavy drops drummed red and slow, The drops ran down as slow as fate-- Do ye hear them still?--it was long ago!-- But here in the shadows I wait, I wait!

Spirits there be that pass in peace; Mine passed in a whorl of wrath and dole; And the hour that your choking breath shall cease I will get my grip on your naked soul-- Nor pity may stay nor prayer cajole-- I would drag ye whining from Hell's own gate: To me, to me, ye must pay the toll! And here in the shadows I wait, I wait!

The dead they are dead, they are out of the way? And a ghost is the whim of an ailing mind? Then why did ye whiten with fear to-day When ye heard a voice in the calling wind? Why did ye falter and look behind At the creeping mists when the hour grew late? Ye would see my face were ye stricken blind! And here in the shadows I wait, I wait!

Drink and forget, make merry and boast, But the boast rings false and the jest is thin-- In the hour that I meet ye ghost to ghost, Stripped of the flesh that ye skulk within, Stripped to the coward soul 'ware of its sin, Ye shall learn, ye shall learn, whether dead men hate! Ah, a weary time has the waiting been, But here in the shadows I wait, I wait!

A NIGHTMARE

LEAGUES before me, leagues behind, Clamor warring wastes of flood, All the streams of all the worlds Flung together, mad of mood; Through the canon beats a sound, Regular of interval, Distant, drumming, muffled, dull, Thunderously rhythmical;

Crafts slip by my startled soul-- Soul that cowers, a thing apart-- They are corpuscles of blood! That's the throbbing of a heart! God of terrors!--am I mad?-- Through my body, mine own soul, Shrunken to an atom's size, Voyages toward an unguessed goal!

THE MOTHER

THE mother by the gallows-tree, The gallows-tree, the gallows-tree, (While the twitching body mocked the sun) Lifted to Heaven her broken heart And called for sympathy.

Then Mother Mary bent to her, Bent from her place by God's left side, And whispered: "Peace--do I not know?-- My son was crucified!"

"O Mother Mary," answered she, "You cannot, cannot enter in To my soul's woe--you cannot know-- For your son wrought no sin!"

(And men whose work compelled them there, Their hearts were stricken dead;

They heard the rope creak on the beam; I thought I heard the frightened ghost Whimpering overhead.)

The mother by the gallows-tree, The gallows-tree, the gallows-tree, Lifted to Christ her broken heart And called in agony.

Then Lord Christ bent to her and said: "Be comforted, be comforted; I know your grief; the whole world's woe I bore upon my head."

"But O Lord Christ, you cannot know, No one can know," she said, "no one"-- (While the quivering corpse swayed in the wind)-- "Lord Christ, no one can understand Who never had a son!"

IN THE BAYOU

LAZY and slow, through the snags and trees Move the sluggish currents, half asleep; Around and between the cypress knees, Like black, slow snakes the dark tides creep-- How deep is the bayou beneath the trees? "Knee-deep, Knee-deep, Knee-deep, Knee-deep!" Croaks the big bullfrog of Reelfoot Lake From his hiding-place in the draggled brake.

What is the secret the slim reeds know That makes them to shake and to shiver so, And the scared flags quiver from plume to foot?-- The frogs pipe solemnly, deep and slow: "Look under the root! Look under the root!"

The hoarse frog croaks and the stark owl hoots Of a mystery moored in the cypress roots.

Was it love turned hate? Was it friend turned foe? Only the frogs and the gray owl know, For the white moon shrouded her face in a mist At the spurt of a pistol, red and bright-- At the sound of a shriek that stabbed the night-- And the little reeds were frightened and whist; But always the eddies whimper and choke, And the frogs would tell if they could, for they croak: "Deep, deep! Death-deep! Deep, deep! Death-deep!" And the dark tide slides and glisters and glides Snakelike over the secret it hides.

THE SAILOR'S WIFE SPEAKS

YE are dead, they say, but ye swore, ye swore, Ye would come to me back from the sea! From out of the sea and the night, ye cried, Nor the crawling weed nor the dragging tide Could hold ye fast from me:-- Come, ah, come to me!

Three spells I have laid on the rising sun And three on the waning moon-- Are ye held in the bonds of the night or the day Ye must loosen your bonds and away, away! Ye must come where I wait ye, soon-- Ah, soon! soon! soon!