X - WHEN THE DOOR WAS OPEN

Lonely as music from afar,

Hung the new moon and one white star,

Above the poplars black and tall

That sentineled the garden wall;

Four black poplars beyond the wall,

Two on each side of the garden gate,

In silhouette against the wide

Pale sky of the late eventide.

Close was the garden and serene.

The leaning reeds in quiet state

About the pool, merged in the green

Of misty leaves and hanging vines.

The fireflies spun their silver lines

Across the deeper atmosphere,

And through the silence came the clear

Persistent tuning of the frogs

From dank recesses of the bogs.

Beyond the garden I could see

The glimmer of uncertain meadows,

Framed by the open doorway, wreathing

Sarabands of ghostly shadows,

Slowly turning, slowly breathing,

Largely and unhastily,—

But the garden held its breath.

Peace as profound as death, if death

Be visited by stealthy dreams;

A vagrant note from soundless themes

That ring the comet-paths of space,

Seemed vibrant in the windless air

That trembled with its presence there.

Out beyond the nameless place

Where neither fields nor clouds exist,

Grey from the background of the mist,

I saw three vague forms drawing near.

My sense recoiled acute with fear;

I could not stir. As from a cage

I watched that spectral dim cortege

Moving inexorable and slow

Against the ashen afterglow.

Now caught the moon their robes in white,

Now strode they sable through the night,

Across the grass they came and grew

Whiter, statelier, as they drew

Beneath the shadow of the wall;

Then one by one the three stepped through

The garden door, and stood a while

Beside the pool, their image spread

Sombre, and menacing, and tall.

Sombre as Priam's dreadful daughter,

Menacing as a murderer's smile,

Tall as the fingers of the dead,

Stood they beside the quiet water.

The moon went out in a golden blur,

And the small stars followed after her,

But when the fireflies cleft the air

I saw those three forms standing there,

Until the night cooled, and the trees

Shook in the strong hands of the breeze,

And then I heard their footsteps press

The muffled grass beyond the door,

And so went forth for ever more,

My three Fates to the wilderness.