Poem by Madison Julius Cawein

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.

1. In the Mountains
2. The Iron Cross
3. Riders in the Night
4. Semper Idem
5. The Battle

Rudyard Kipling The Vampire ("A fool there was and he made his prayer")

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