57278: Dusk and the Mirror

<p dir="ltr"> Where the room seems ponder-<br> ing,<br> Shadowy hovering,<br> Pictured walls and dove-dim<br> ceiling,<br> Edgeless, lost and spectral,<br> In a quaint half farewell<br> Away the things familiar fall<br> In some limbo to a spell.<br> Mutation of slipped moment<br> When nothing and solid is blent.<br> O! dusk palpitant!<br> Prank fantastical!<br> You hide and steal from<br> morning<br> What you give back from<br> hiding,<br> You prank before the dawning<br> And run from her frail chiding,<br> And all my household Gods<br> When he who worships nods<br> You tweak and pinch and hide<br> And dabble under your side<br> To drop upon the shores<br> Of an old tomorrow<br> Shut with the same old doors<br> Of sleep and shame and sorrow.<br> But naked you have left<br> One jewel, dripping still<br> From plundering plashless<br> fingers.<br> Lying in a cleft<br> Of your own surging-bosomed<br> hill,<br> It dreams of dreams bereft<br> And warm dishevelled singers,<br> Safe from your placeless will.<br> Or you are like a tree now,<br> And that is like a lake,<br> Sinister to thee now<br> Its glimmer is awake.<br> Like vague undrowning boughs<br> Above the pool<br> You float your gloom in its low<br> light<br> Where Narcissian augurs browse,<br> Dreaming from its cool<br> Apparition a fear;<br> Behind the wall of hours you<br> hear<br> The tread of the arch light.<br></p>