Poems (Tree)/Black Velvet
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BLACK VELVET
THE darkness of the trees at deep midnight
And sombreness of shadows in the lake;
A mountain in the starlight wide awake
Dreaming to Heaven with imperial might
Of lifted shoulders, huge against the bright
Bespattered jewelry of stars—the ache
Of silence, and the sobbing tides that break
From music. Slumbering cities—candle light
Snuffed in the flooding darkness, and the train
Of Queens that go to scaffold for a sin
Or splash of blackness manifest of pain,
Hamlet among his court, a Harlequin
Of tragedies . . . Mysterious . . . And again
Venetian masks against a milky skin.
And sombreness of shadows in the lake;
A mountain in the starlight wide awake
Dreaming to Heaven with imperial might
Of lifted shoulders, huge against the bright
Bespattered jewelry of stars—the ache
Of silence, and the sobbing tides that break
From music. Slumbering cities—candle light
Snuffed in the flooding darkness, and the train
Of Queens that go to scaffold for a sin
Or splash of blackness manifest of pain,
Hamlet among his court, a Harlequin
Of tragedies . . . Mysterious . . . And again
Venetian masks against a milky skin.
1917