BLACK VELVET

The darkness of the trees at deep midnight

And sombreness of shadows in the lake;

A mountain in the starlight wide awake

Dreaming to Heaven with imperial might

Of lifted shoulders, huge against the bright

Bespattered jewelry of stars — the ache

Of silence, and the sobbing tides that break

From music. Slumbering cities — candle light

Snuffed in the flooding darkness, and the train

Of Queens that go to scaffold for a sin —

Or splash of blackness manifest of pain,

Hamlet among his court, a Harlequin

Of tragedies... Mysterious... And again

Venetian masks against a milky skin.