“speak! speak! thou fearful guest!
Who, with thy hollow breast
Still in rude armor drest,
Comest to daunt me!
Wrapt not in Eastern balms,
But with thy fleshless palms
Stretched, as if asking alms,
Why dost thou haunt me?”
Then from those cavernous eyes
Pale flashes seemed to rise,
As when the Northern skies...
We summoned not the Silent Guest,
And no man spake his name;
By lips unseen our Cup was pressed,
And mid the merry song and jest,
The Uninvited came.
Wise were they in the days of old,
Who gave the Stranger place;
And when the joyous catch was trolled,
And toasts were quaffed and tales were told,
They looked him...
From “Modern Love”
AT dinner she is hostess, I am host.
Went the feast ever cheerfuller? She keeps
The topic over intellectual deeps
In buoyancy afloat. They see no ghost.
With sparkling surface-eyes we ply the ball:
It is in truth a most contagious game;
HIDING THE SKELETON shall be its name.
Such play as this the devils might...
[The Ms. of this poem, which appeared in 1820, was said to have been found in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, in London, near a perfect human skeleton. It was published in the Morning Chronicle. The author was never discovered, although a reward of fifty guineas was offered.]
BEHOLD this ruin! ’T was a skull
Once of ethereal spirit full.
This narrow cell...
“SPEAK! 1 speak! thou fearful guest!
Who, with thy hollow breast
Still in rude armor drest,
Comest to daunt me!
Wrapt not in Eastern balms,
But with thy fleshless palms
Stretched, as if asking alms,
Why dost thou haunt me?”
Then from those cavernous eyes
Pale flashes seemed to rise,
As when the Northern skies...
