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 | The poems of Madison Cawein |  |
254
THE HOUSE OF FEAR
Vast are its halls, as vast the halls and loneWhere Death sits, listening to the wind and rain;
And dark the house, where I shall meet again
That long-dead Sin in some dread way unknown:
For I have dreamed of stairs of haunted stone,
And spectre footsteps I have fled in vain;
And windows glaring with a blood-red stain,
And hollow eyes, that burn me to the bone,
Within a face that looks as that black night
It looked when deep I dug for it a grave,—
The dagger wound above the brow, the thin
Blood trickling slantwise down the cheek's dead white;—
And I have dreamed not even God can save
Me and my soul from that arisen Sin.
| The poems of Madison Cawein | |