Moonlight in an Old House

A Tone Poem

The door opened;
And the darkness surged out, loomed up like a phantom,
Flowed round me, embracing, the smooth, yielding darkness.
Ivory-cold, in the dull clutching gloom,
I stood there alone, entombed In the shadows.
And the cool air was eld, as old as the Heavens,
And the .dust lay there softly, a thick, furry carpet.
Deep, deep was the darkness; the tall vaulted hallway
Was dark as a cavern in fathomless sea-depths;
And the pad of my footfalls swept echoing upwards,
Echoed faintly, resounding,
Echoed softer——
In thin streaks of light, glimm'ring silver through wall-cracks,
I saw festooned cobwebs, like death-shrouds for elf-sprites.
The silence crept closer; I turned to the stairway.
Scurries in the wainscotting;
Soft taps in the withered panelling;
Shrill creaks of the floor-boards;
And I opened the door at the top of the stairway,
And the moonlight burst out, a star-flame of brilliance.
Coral-cool moonlight, blue-flushed streaming moonlight,
Flowed in through the casement, a thin mist of sliver.
Flooding the old room, a rich glow of sea-smoke;
And pools of molten moonlight rippled on the floor.
And. showered with the moon-beams, fairies were dancing,
Myriads of fairies in Light filmy gossamer,
Dancing, all dancing,
A gleam In the moonlight.
Round and round, faster and faster,
Daintily twirling
And now pirouetting.
Dancing, all dancing,
A gleam in the moonlight.
Lighter than star-dust,
And tinier than dew-drops,
Eddies of dust
Spinning up with their dancing,
Dancing, all dancing,
A gleam in the moonlight,
To thrilling soft music
By wee goblin fiddlers.
Straddled on moonbeams
And playing like lightning—
Music like laughter
Of children at sunset.
Dancing, all dancing.
Agleam in the moonlight.
And I turned away slowly, my soul sick with beauty;
The old door creaked, and opened—
In the womb of the hallway the darkness was deathly;
The silence beat round me, as tense as a thunder-sky;
And the gloom lay heavy in the rooms.

—R.L.M.