Page:Anthology of Modern Slavonic Literature in Prose and Verse by Paul Selver.djvu/294

 

Came forth then the first tortured mortal
Unto the radiant sheen of shifting vapours.
From mists the vagrant hobbled over the pastures. . .
Slipped his bloodstained tatters over his feet
Livid with foulness and canker, in which Death squatted,
He plunged his running wounds therein. . .
And the sky-line grew dim and dim afar,
Thickening mists in the fens, where a bird faltered,
Canker of grave yards, stench of mortal remains
Wafted from the banks a burial requiem. . .

Through gulleys leaked foul contagions,
Mouldering in quagmires, from the rended lining
Like ulcers they burst forth therein, meadows,
Water-logged marsh-land they lulled there to slumber,
In the wake of the wind sobbed a burial requiem. . .

Here it floated into the city cess-pool. . . Windows
Hurled their sheds of light upon its surface
And magic of homesteads was trailing eerily
On the wrinkled waters
And trees dipped their sickly green, garlands loosened from cornices
Straggled down in the tarnished mirror of the waters.