Page:Collected poems of Rupert Brooke.djvu/44

 THE SONG OF THE BEASTS

(Sung, on one night, in the cities, in the darkness.)

away! Come away!

Ye are sober and dull through the common day,

But now it is night!

It is shameful night, and God is asleep!

(Have you not felt the quick fires that creep

Through the hungry flesh, and the lust of delight,

And hot secrets of dreams that day cannot say?).

The house is dumb;

The night calls out to you. Come, ah, come!

Down the dim stairs, through the creaking door,

Naked, crawling on hands and feet

—It is meet! it is meet!

Ye are men no longer, but less and more,

Beast and God. . . . Down the lampless street,

By little black ways, and secret places,

In the darkness and mire,

Faint laughter around, and evil faces

By the star-glint seen—ah! follow with us!

For the darkness whispers a blind desire,

And the fingers of night are amorous.

Keep close as we speed,

Though mad whispers woo you, and hot hands cling,