What's O'Clock/The Enchanted Castle
THE ENCHANTED CASTLE
To Edgar Allan Poe
Old crumbling stones set long ago upon The naked headland of a suave green shore. Old stones all riven into cracks and glands By moss and ivy. Up above, a peak Of narrow, iron windows, a hooded tower With frozen windows looking to the West. When the sun sets, a winking, fiery light Rifles the window-panes above the gloom Of purple waters heaving evenly, Waters moving about the naked headland In sombre slowness, with no dash of spray To strike the stagnant pools and flash the weeds. A rack of shifting clouds Darkens the waters' margin. On the shore Are clusters of great trees whose brittle leaves Crackle together as the mournful wind Takes them and shakes them. But the tower windows Fling bloody streams of light across the dusk, Planges of bloody light which the upper sky Has hurled at them and now is drawing back. Behind the tower, where no windows are, A little wisp of moon catches the stones So that they glitter palely from the shore, The suave green shore with all its leaden trees.