 | The collected poems of Arthur Edward Waite |  |
THE SWOONING CASTLE
Suddenly, wide in the night awake—
Do you know what that means?—with a start
And a tremulous heart,
In the dark of the night rose I:
Had a voice unknown of a day to break
Utter'd some warning cry? ..
But the East was cold, and the thin white fold
Of a light mist up to the windows roll'd,
And the leaves by the windows wept.
'Tis a mournful thing, at a time so dead,
To wake uncall'd and with stealthy tread—
And the hush'd breath inward kept—
From room to room, in the curtain'd gloom,
Pass, and from bed to bed.
Do you know what that means?—with a start
And a tremulous heart,
In the dark of the night rose I:
Had a voice unknown of a day to break
Utter'd some warning cry? ..
But the East was cold, and the thin white fold
Of a light mist up to the windows roll'd,
And the leaves by the windows wept.
'Tis a mournful thing, at a time so dead,
To wake uncall'd and with stealthy tread—
And the hush'd breath inward kept—
From room to room, in the curtain'd gloom,
Pass, and from bed to bed.
42
They slept:
Some in their peace and some in their grace,
And some there were with a haunted face
And a fever'd head.
Once at the corridor's end I drew
Toward a sheeted figure which glided through
To the top of a stairway steep:
It carried a darken'd lamp and pass'd:
There was none in the house that slept so fast
As he who walk'd in his sleep.
Over the stairs I peer'd and found,
With head to breast, by his lantern's side,
On the porter's bench was the porter bound,
I knew not whether in sleep or swound,
While heavy-eyed by the doorway wide
Lay drowsy henchman and dreaming hound.
Some in their peace and some in their grace,
And some there were with a haunted face
And a fever'd head.
Once at the corridor's end I drew
Toward a sheeted figure which glided through
To the top of a stairway steep:
It carried a darken'd lamp and pass'd:
There was none in the house that slept so fast
As he who walk'd in his sleep.
Over the stairs I peer'd and found,
With head to breast, by his lantern's side,
On the porter's bench was the porter bound,
I knew not whether in sleep or swound,
While heavy-eyed by the doorway wide
Lay drowsy henchman and dreaming hound.
With none to challenge, I slipp'd the latch
And, issuing under the streaming thatch,
I visited stable and stall and stye,
But I never came on an open eye,
For the roosting fowl, that crow'd unbidden,
Slept with his beak in his plumage hidden.
Far and sad, in a world of reeds,
A shoal brook slipp'd through the marsh and meads,
With no more sound than the dark lagoon,
Dead still, outstaring the dripping moon:
The moon on her side in the mist lay red—
Green leaves, but they stirr'd not overhead!
And, issuing under the streaming thatch,
I visited stable and stall and stye,
But I never came on an open eye,
For the roosting fowl, that crow'd unbidden,
Slept with his beak in his plumage hidden.
Far and sad, in a world of reeds,
A shoal brook slipp'd through the marsh and meads,
With no more sound than the dark lagoon,
Dead still, outstaring the dripping moon:
The moon on her side in the mist lay red—
Green leaves, but they stirr'd not overhead!
So, seeing the swoon of the world outside
Has more of sorrow and less of kin
Than the torpid heart of the house within—
Like the hush which falls when a ghost has cried—
My heart with its yearning drew me back,
By the creaking stairway's winding track.
In an upper room of the roof which faces
East, with the sense of a hope subdued
That a light may whiten the mist-fill'd spaces,
Sleep being out of my thoughts, I brood
And watch; but I feel that they watch me too,
The unseen ones, sitting this long night through—
Near, as it may be, though out of reach—
Till sleepers shall waken to life and speech
At the end of this sorrowful spell.
And since high up in the belfry tower
There hangs a listless bell,
Some voice may bid me proclaim the hour:
Whence in my comfortless mood I gain
The sense of a vigil not wholly vain.
Shall I not, seeing the Rising Sun,
Cry: “Look; It is Morning”—when night is done?
If I fell at the end into slumber deep,
I should call out such good news in my sleep.
Has more of sorrow and less of kin
Than the torpid heart of the house within—
Like the hush which falls when a ghost has cried—
My heart with its yearning drew me back,
By the creaking stairway's winding track.
43
East, with the sense of a hope subdued
That a light may whiten the mist-fill'd spaces,
Sleep being out of my thoughts, I brood
And watch; but I feel that they watch me too,
The unseen ones, sitting this long night through—
Near, as it may be, though out of reach—
Till sleepers shall waken to life and speech
At the end of this sorrowful spell.
And since high up in the belfry tower
There hangs a listless bell,
Some voice may bid me proclaim the hour:
Whence in my comfortless mood I gain
The sense of a vigil not wholly vain.
Shall I not, seeing the Rising Sun,
Cry: “Look; It is Morning”—when night is done?
If I fell at the end into slumber deep,
I should call out such good news in my sleep.
| The collected poems of Arthur Edward Waite | |