Forbidden Magic

There came to me a Man one summer night, When all the world lay silent in the stars, And moonlight crossed my room with ghostly bars. He whispered hints of weird, unhallowed sight; I followed – then in waves of spectral light Mounted the shimmery ladders of my soul Where moon-pale spiders, huge as dragons, stole – Great forms like moths, with wings of wispy white.

Around the world the sighing of the loon Shook misty lakes beneath the false-dawn’s gleams; Rose tinted shone the sky-line’s minaret; I rose in fear, and then with blood and sweat Beat out the iron fabrics of my dreams, And shaped of them a web to snare the moon.