A LURID sunset, red as blood, Firing a sombre, haunted wood; From whose recesses, dark and fell, One hurries with a face of Hell. Two at a banquet board alone, In dalliance, the feast being done. And one behind the arras stands, Grasping an axe with quivering hands. A high cliff-meadow lush with Spring; Gay butterflies upon the wing; Beneath, beyond, unbounded, free, The foam-flecked, blue, pervading sea. A clustering hill-town, climbing white From the grey olives up the height, And higher on the glaring sky A huge sierra, dead and dry. A rain-swept moor at shut of day, And by the dead unhappy way A lonely child untended lies: Against the West a wretch who flies. Cold dawn, which flouts the abandoned hall, And one worn face, which loathes it all; In his ringed hand a vial, while The grey lips wear a ghastly smile. Corinthian pillars fine, which stand In moonlight on a desert sand; Others o'erthrown, in whose dark shade Some fire-eyed brute its lair has made. Mountainous clouds embattled high Around a dark blue lake of sky; And from its clear depths, shining far, The calm eye of the evening star. A moonlight chequered avenue; Above, a starlit glimpse of blue: And from the thick-laced shade between The grey ghost of a woman seen. |