 | The poems and prose writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield |  |
Buttress and arch, pillar and image fell,
And the green waters of the gloom were filled
With hoarded treasures—vainly coffered up.
Now rose the maiden on the quaking earth,
And, like the thoughts of parted love in youth,
Rushed from the mitred violator's home,
Through the felt darkness of the labyrinth.
On sculptured capitals and heads of gods
She passed the dismal gulfs, and trident tongues
Hissed after her amid the turbid waves.
Along a gorgeous banquet hall, o'erstrewn
With porphyry tables, alabaster lamps,
Half quenched, and shattered wine cups of gemm'd gold,
With awe and wonder fraught, the victim fled.
And now she grasped a flickering light and on
Hurried, casting on dolesome objects round,
And nameless things of horror, glances wild
With terrour and deep loathing; the death-dews
Upon the walls, green with the deadly moss,
Trailed in thick streams, and o'er her sinking heart
Breathed the cold midnight of the sepulchre;
And from the shapeless shadows growing up,
The startled spirit wrought the forms of fiends,
Or, worse, pursuers charged to hale her back.
And the green waters of the gloom were filled
With hoarded treasures—vainly coffered up.
Now rose the maiden on the quaking earth,
And, like the thoughts of parted love in youth,
Rushed from the mitred violator's home,
Through the felt darkness of the labyrinth.
On sculptured capitals and heads of gods
She passed the dismal gulfs, and trident tongues
Hissed after her amid the turbid waves.
Along a gorgeous banquet hall, o'erstrewn
With porphyry tables, alabaster lamps,
Half quenched, and shattered wine cups of gemm'd gold,
With awe and wonder fraught, the victim fled.
And now she grasped a flickering light and on
Hurried, casting on dolesome objects round,
And nameless things of horror, glances wild
With terrour and deep loathing; the death-dews
Upon the walls, green with the deadly moss,
Trailed in thick streams, and o'er her sinking heart
Breathed the cold midnight of the sepulchre;
And from the shapeless shadows growing up,
The startled spirit wrought the forms of fiends,
Or, worse, pursuers charged to hale her back.
| The poems and prose writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield | |