Spleen

When the low heavy sky weighs like a lid Upon the spirit aching for the light And all the wide horizon's line is hid By a black day sadder than any night;

When the changed earth is but a dungeon dank Where batlike Hope goes blindly fluttering And, striking wall and roof and mouldered plank, Bruises his tender head and timid wing;

When like grim prison-bars stretch down the thin, Straight, rigid pillars of the endless rain, And the dumb throngs of infamous spiders spin Their meshes in the caverns of the brain;--

Suddenly, bells leap forth into the air, Hurling a hideous uproar to the sky As 'twere a band of homeless spirits who fare Through the strange heavens, wailing stubbornly.

And hearses, without drum or instrument, File slowly through my soul; crushed, sorrowful, Weeps Hope, and Grief, fierce and omnipotent, Plants his black banner on my drooping skull.