WILL-O’ -THE-WISP

There in the calamus he stands

With frog-webbed feet and bat-winged hands;

His glow-worm garb glints goblin-wise;

And elfishly, and elfishly,

Above the gleam of owlet eyes,

A death's-moth cap of downy dyes

Nods out at me, nods out at me.

Now in the reeds his face looks white

As witch-down on a witches’ night;

Now through the dark old haunted mill,

So eerily, so eerily,

He flits; and with a whippoorwill

Mouth calls, and seems to syllable,

“Come follow me! come follow me!”

Now o'er the sluggish stream he wends,

A slim light at his finger-ends;

The spotted spawn, the toad hath clomb,

Slips oozily, slips oozily;

His easy footsteps seem to come —

Like bubble-gaspings of the scum —

Now near to me, now near to me.

There by the stagnant pool he stands,

A fox-fire lamp in flickering hands;

The weeds are slimy to the tread,

And mockingly, and mockingly,

With slanted eyes and eldritch head

He leans above a face long dead,—

The face of me! the face of me!