The Vampire

A lily in a twilight place? A moonflow'r in the lonely night?— Strange beauty of a woman's face Of wildflow'r-white! The rain that hangs a star's green ray Slim on a leaf-point's restlessness, Is not so glimmering green and gray As was her dress. I drew her dark hair from her eyes, And in their deeps beheld a while Such shadowy moonlight as the skies Of Hell may smile. She held her mouth up redly wan, And burning cold,—I bent and kissed Such rosy snow as some wild dawn Makes of a mist. God shall not take from me that hour, When round my neck her white arms clung! When ‘neath my lips, like some fierce flower, Her white throat swung! Or words she murmured while she leaned! Witch-words, she holds me softly by,— The spell that binds me to a fiend Until I die.