Page:A Wine of Wizardry and Other Poems (1909).djvu/28

 (Whenas the hours creep farthest from the noon) Seek by the glow-worm's lantern cold and dull A crimson spider hidden in a skull, Or search for mottled vines with berries white, Where waters mutter to the gibbous moon. There, clothed in cerements of malignant light, A sick enchantress scans the dark to curse, Beside a caldron vext with harlots blood, The stars of that red Sign which spells her doom.

Then Fancy cleaves the palmy skies adverse To sunset barriers. By the Ganges' flood She sees, in her dim temple, Siva loom And, visioned with a monstrous ruby, glare On distant twilight where the burning-ghaut Is lit with glowering pyres that seem the eyes Of her abhorrent dragon-worms that bear The pestilence, by Death in darkness wrought. So Fancy's wings forsake the Asian skies, And now her heart is curious of halls