Page:Anthology of Modern Slavonic Literature in Prose and Verse by Paul Selver.djvu/269

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And I hear the creaking of door-posts, And hands unseen are opening Heavy portals of a gloomy palace. And I tread the stair-way of black marble And my steps call into the darkness And dead spaces answer unto them— And I stride so firmly through darkness of passages And pace the emptiness of ancient halls, Ancestral halls, At the sides of which I forebode pictures of grandsires And tatters of captured banners And rusted weapons from old-time combats, Which savour of murder And I feel the mildew that bedecks all, And the air, that the dead inhale. And I see flickering in the darkness Shadows of alarm and sorrowful crape. And I feel how my heart is beating vehemently, And my temples, how they are moistened with sweat And anguish clutches me for what I have endured, And what long is no more. "Conversations with Death" (1904).