And I hear the creaking of door-posts,
And hands unseen are opening
Heavy portals of a gloomy palace.
And I tread the stair-way of black marble
And my steps call into the darkness
And dead spaces answer unto them—
And I stride so firmly through darkness of passages
And pace the emptiness of ancient halls,
Ancestral halls,
At the sides of which I forebode pictures of grandsires
And tatters of captured banners
And rusted weapons from old-time combats,
Which savour of murder. . .
And I feel the mildew that bedecks all,
And the air, that the dead inhale.
And I see flickering in the darkness
Shadows of alarm and sorrowful crape.
And I feel how my heart is beating vehemently,
And my temples, how they are moistened with sweat
And anguish clutches me for what I have endured,
And what long is no more.
"Conversations with Death" (1904).
