Page:Two Mock Epics (Hanuman and Tantum Religio), Lyrics, Post Meridian Verse, The Turret Captain's Toast and other Verses.pdf/60

 As if to midnight’s spectral ghost-world wedded.

Those foliage fans and clusters that resembled,

Bathed in the moonlight, sprays all diamond showered,

Swayed by a secret hand fantasmal, trembled

And in the branches’ vast arch, high embowered,

Titanic shadows came and went fantastic,

A gnarled face of bark, all tendril braided,

Its death’s head on a ghastly nape paraded

Above a coil of serpent-roots elastic.

Here, through the gloom, two fire-stars blue and hoary

Announced the beast of night, the lurking lory

And ghost-moths huge upon the night-breeze shiver,

And bats hawk wheeling o’er a stagnant river;

At every crackling twig the army flinches,

Some wild beast’s distant roar the terror clinches.

But if those sounds ill-omened cease, you’ll scarcely

Detect the rustling steps, they fall so sparsely;

So noiselessly the host, this, that way peeping,

As though some caravan of ghosts ’twere, creeping.

No clink of sword disturbs the night air balmy,

All hold their breath and damp their small feet’s pattering,

The silence of the grave broods o’er the army,

Scarce broken by the warriors’ poor teeth chattering.

Lo! here a massive trunk decumbent branches,

Loaded with heavy fruitage, earthward launches,

How temptingly its luscious load stoops o’er ’em!

Each ape-mouth’s watering, and—hi cockalorum!

The vanguard’s pulling down the promised branches,

But all at once recoils upon its haunches

In panic terror, thunder-struck, half-dying,

And with a squeal the ranks are tumbling, flying,

For ugh! it is transformed, that fruity banquet