THE IDIOT

Two children in a garden

Shouting for joy

Were playing dolls and houses,

A girl and boy.

I smiled at a neighbor window,

And watched them play

Under a budding oak tree

On a wintry day.

And then a board half broken

In the high fence

Fell over and there entered,

I know not whence,

A jailbird face of yellow

With a vacant sulk,

His body was a sickly

Thing of bulk.

His open mouth was slavering,

And a green light

Turned disc-like in his eyeballs,

Like a dog's at night.

His teeth were like a giant's,

And far apart;

I saw him reel on the children

With a stopping heart.

He trampled their dolls and ruined

The house they made;

He struck to earth the children

With a dirty spade.

As a tiger growls with an antelope

After the hunt,

Over the little faces

I heard him grunt.

I stood at the window frozen,

And short of breath,

And then I saw the idiot

Was Master Death!

A bird in the lilac bushes

Began to sing.

The garden colored before me

To the kiss of spring.

And the yellow face in a moment

Was a mystic white;

The matted hair was softened

To starry light.

The ragged coat flowed downward

Into a robe;

He carried a sword and a balance

And stood on a globe.

I watched him from the window

Under a spell;

The idiot was the angel

Azrael!