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.