Black Vesper's Pageants by Madison Cawein — Read

The day, all fierce with carmine, turns / An Indian face towards Earth and dies; / The west, like some gaunt vase, inurns / Its ashes under smouldering skies, / Athwart whose bowl one red cloud streams, / Strange as a shape some Aztec dreams.

Now shadows mass above the world, / And night comes on with wind and rain; / The mulberry-colored leaves are hurled / Like frantic hands against the pane.

And through the forests, bending low, / Night stalks like some gigantic woe.

In hollows where the thistle shakes / A hoar bloom like a witch's-light, / From weed and flower the rain-wind rakes / Dead sweetness -- as a wildman might, / From out the leaves, the woods among, / Dig some dead woman, fair and young.

Now let me walk the woodland ways, / Alone! except for thoughts, that are / Akin to such wild nights and days; / A portion of the storm that far / Fills Heaven and Earth tumultuously, / And my own soul with ecstasy.