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THE TOAD IN THE SKULL |
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 | The poems of Madison Cawein |  |
184
THE TOAD IN THE SKULL
A human skull in a churchyard lay;
For the church was a wreck, and, toppling old,
On the graves of their dead, were the tomb-stones gray,
And crumbling into mold.
For the church was a wreck, and, toppling old,
On the graves of their dead, were the tomb-stones gray,
And crumbling into mold.
And a hideous toad of this skull had made
A house, a hermitage, long agone,
Where the ivy-tod with many a braid
Half-hid his cell of bone.
A house, a hermitage, long agone,
Where the ivy-tod with many a braid
Half-hid his cell of bone.
And the place was dark; and my feet were drawn
To the desolate spot where the tottering tombs
Seemed sheeted ghosts in the twilight wan
Of the yew-invested glooms.
To the desolate spot where the tottering tombs
Seemed sheeted ghosts in the twilight wan
Of the yew-invested glooms.
The night her crescent had slimly hung
From a single star o'er the shattered wall,
And its feeble light on the stone was flung
Where I sat to hear him call.
From a single star o'er the shattered wall,
And its feeble light on the stone was flung
Where I sat to hear him call.
185
And I heard this heremite toad as he sate
In the gloom of his ghastly hermitage
To himself and the gloom all hollowly prate,
Like a misanthropic sage:
In the gloom of his ghastly hermitage
To himself and the gloom all hollowly prate,
Like a misanthropic sage:
“Oh, beauty is well and wealth to all;
But wealth without beauty makes fair:
And beauty with wealth brings wooers tall
Whom she snares with her golden hair.
But wealth without beauty makes fair:
And beauty with wealth brings wooers tall
Whom she snares with her golden hair.
“Though beauty be well and be wealth to all,
And wealth without beauty draw men,
Beauty must come to the vaulted wall,
And what is wealth to her then? . . .
And wealth without beauty draw men,
Beauty must come to the vaulted wall,
And what is wealth to her then? . . .
“This skeleton face was beautiful erst;
These sockets were brighter than stars;
And she bartered her beauty for gold accurst—
But the story is older than Mars!” . . .
These sockets were brighter than stars;
And she bartered her beauty for gold accurst—
But the story is older than Mars!” . . .
And he blinked at the moon from his grinning cell,
And the darnels and burdocks were stirred,
Cold-swept of the wind, and I shuddered.—Well!
Perhaps 't was my heart I had heard.
And the darnels and burdocks were stirred,
Cold-swept of the wind, and I shuddered.—Well!
Perhaps 't was my heart I had heard.
| The poems of Madison Cawein | |