One hill there was which, parted from the rest,
  Stood where the eastern water curved a-west. 
    Silent and passionless it stood.  I thought
  I saw a scar upon its giant breast.

  The sun with sullen and portentous gleam
  Hung like a menace on the sea’s extreme;
    Nor the dead waters, nor the far, bleak bars
  Of cloud were conscious of his failing beam.

  It was a dismal and a dreadful sight,
  That desert in its cold, uncanny light;
    No soul but I alone to mark the fear
  And imminence of everlasting night!

  All presages and prophecies of doom
  Glimmered and babbled in the ghastly gloom,
    And in the midst of that accursed scene
  A wolf sat howling on a broken tomb.

  Elixer vitae.

  Of life’s elixir I had writ, when sleep
  (Pray Heaven it spared him who the writing read!)
  Sealed upon my senses with so deep
  A stupefaction that men thought me dead. 
  The centuries stole by with noiseless tread,
  Like spectres in the twilight of my dream;
  I saw mankind in dim procession sweep
  Through life, oblivion at each extreme. 
  Meanwhile my beard, like Barbarossa’s growing,
  Loaded my lap and o’er my knees was flowing.

  The generations came with dance and song,
  And each observed me curiously there. 
  Some asked:  “Who was he?” Others in the throng
  Replied:  “A wicked monk who slept at prayer.” 
  Some said I was a saint, and some a bear—­
  These all were women.  So the young and gay,
  Visibly wrinkling as they fared along,
  Doddered at last on failing limbs away;
  Though some, their footing in my beard entangled,
  Fell into its abysses and were strangled.

  At last a generation came that walked
  More slowly forward to the common tomb,
  Then altogether stopped.  The women talked
  Excitedly; the men, with eyes agloom
  Looked darkly on them with a look of doom;
  And one cried out:  “We are immortal now—­
  How need we these?” And a dread figure stalked,
  Silent, with gleaming axe and shrouded brow,
  And all men cried:  “Decapitate the women,
  Or soon there’ll be no room to stand or swim in!”

  So (in my dream) each lovely head was chopped
  From its fair shoulders, and but men alone
  Were left in all the world.  Birth being stopped,
  Enough of room remained in every zone,
  And Peace ascended Woman’s vacant throne. 
  Thus, life’s elixir being found (the quacks
  Their bread-and-butter in it gladly sopped)
  ’Twas made worth having by the headsman’s axe. 
  Seeing which, I gave myself a hearty shaking,
  And crumbled all to powder in the waking.

CONVALESCENT.