University of Virginia Library


82

The Twin-Soul.

In the dead of the night a spirit came:
Her moonwhite face and her eyes of flame
Were known to me:—I called her name—
The name that shall not be spoken at all
Till Death hath this body of mine in thrall!
And she laughed to see me lying there,
Wrapped in the living-corpse bloody and fair,
And my soul 'mid its thin films shining bare—
And I rose and followed her glance so sweet
And passed from the house with noiseless feet.

83

I know not myself what I knew, what I saw:
I know that it filled me with trouble and awe,
With pain that still at my heart doth gnaw:
That she with her wild eyes witched my soul
And whispered the name of the Unknown Goal.
O wild was her laugh, and wild was my cry
When with one long flash and a weary sigh
I awoke as from sleep bewilderingly:
Her voice, her eyes, they are with me still,
O Spirit-Enchantress, O Demon Will!