Till with the setting sun they turn them once more home;
And, ere the moon dawns, for a brief enchanted space,
Weary with million miles, the sore-spent star-beams come,
And moths and bats hold witches' sabbath in the place.

And then I picture thee some bloodstained Holyrood,
Dread haunted palace of the bat and owl, whence steal,
Shrouded all day, lost murdered spirits of the wood,
And fright young happy nests with homeless hoot and squeal.

Then, maybe, dangling from thy gloomy gallows boughs,
A human corpse swings, mournful, rattling bones and chains--
His eighteenth century flesh hath fattened nineteenth century cows--
Ghastly Aeolian harp fingered of winds and rains.

Poor Rizpah comes to reap each newly-fallen bone
That once thrilled soft, a little limb, within her womb;
And mark yon alchemist, with zodiac-spangled zone,
Wrenching the mandrake root that fattens in the gloom.

So rounds thy day, from maiden morn to haunted night,
From larks and sunlit dreams to owl and gibbering ghost;
A catacomb of dark, a maze of living light,
To the wide sea of air a green and welcome coast.

I seek a god, old tree: accept my worship, thou!
All other gods have failed me always in my need;
I hang my votive song beneath thy temple bough,
Unto thy strength I cry--Old monster, be my creed!