Madmoments: or First Verseattempts By a Bornnatural. Addressed to the Lightheaded of Society at Large, by Henry Ellison |
 | I. |
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AN UNBRIDLED FANCYBURST,
OR PRELUDE TO A DEATHTALE. |
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| II. |
 | Madmoments: or First Verseattempts |  |
AN UNBRIDLED FANCYBURST, OR PRELUDE TO A DEATHTALE.
Let my discourse be as the Nightowlscry,The Forenote to a deed of Darkness; let
Its Hue, be as the Air, wherein he oars
His unsunned and illomened Flight, athawrt
The dank, gravetenanted Churchyard, what time
Midnight, the still and sightless Labourer,
Builds up the keystone of nightsarch, on which
The coming Day has placed his unseen Foot;
And the sad Clock tolls out the past Day's Death,
When the last hour of all the twelve, fullfledged,
Has flown in silence to Eternity!
Let the Deathraven's earoffending Note,
Robed in the darkness of his plumage, on
The Gibbetchains, expectant of his prey,
Be Music unto mine; and let my Tongue,
The very Messenger of Horror's self,
Unto a tuneless deed, lend tuneless notes,
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Be icetouched at the Thought, whose outline dim,
Like to a Ghost's, steals on you; let each Hair,
As with an individual touch of dread,
Start up on End. Imagination! lift
The Veil, which hides the portals of the Grave,
And unlid quite the Mindseye, for all sense
Of feebler Edge were out of Season here,
To look upon the thing that I would draw;
And push Conception to the farthest Brink
Of Crime's most fathomless, eyedazzling height,
And in the dread Abyss behold my thought
Shadowed in hues which are not of this Earth!
But gaze not long, lest dizziness and dread
Should overbalance thee, and thou be lost
Beyond all reach of Heaven's blessëd Light;
Where never ray of Star or Sun was sent,
But baleful Glooms, and shapeless Darkness wrap
Thee round for evermore!
| Madmoments: or First Verseattempts | |