Spirits in Bondage: A Cycle of Lyrics

XXXVI. The Star Bath

     A place uplifted towards the midnight sky
     Far, far away among the mountains old,
     A treeless waste of rocks and freezing cold,
     Where the dead, cheerless moon rode neighbouring by—
     And in the midst a silent tarn there lay,
     A narrow pool, cold as the tide that flows
     Where monstrous bergs beyond Varanger stray,
     Rising from sunless depths that no man knows;
     Thither as clustering fireflies have I seen
     At fixed seasons all the stars come down
     To wash in that cold wave their brightness clean
     And win the special fire wherewith they crown
     The wintry heavens in frost. Even as a flock
     Of falling birds, down to the pool they came.
     I saw them and I heard the icy shock
     Of stars engulfed with hissing of faint flame—
     Ages ago before the birth of men
     Or earliest beast. Yet I was still the same
     That now remember, knowing not where or when.