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Title: Will-O'-The-Wisp
Author: Madison Julius Cawein [
More Titles by Cawein]
I.
There in the calamus he stands
With frog-webbed feet and bat-winged hands;
His glow-worm garb glints goblin-wise;
And elfishly, and elfishly,
Above the gleam of owlet eyes,
A death's-moth cap of downy dyes
Nods out at me, nods out at me.
II.
Now in the reeds his face looks white
As witch-down on a witches' night;
Now through the dark old haunted mill,
So eerily, so eerily,
He flits; and with a whippoorwill
Mouth calls, and seems to syllable,
"Come follow me! come follow me!"
III.
Now o'er the sluggish stream he wends,
A slim light at his finger-ends;
The spotted spawn, the toad hath clomb,
Slips oozily, slips oozily;
His easy footsteps seem to come--
Like bubble-gaspings of the scum--
Now near to me, now near to me.
IV.
There by the stagnant pool he stands,
A fox-fire lamp in flickering hands;
The weeds are slimy to the tread,
And mockingly, and mockingly,
With slanted eyes and eldritch head
He leans above a face long dead,--
The face of me! the face of me!
[The end]
Madison Julius Cawein's poem: Will-O'-The-Wisp
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