Somewhere beneath the bat-shawled moon
Sleep mocks me from her hiding-place
Is it love or horror that I feel?
I do not know; I cannot read the rune.
What waking dream has brought me here?
To crumbling castle, tumbled towers
An alphabet of arch and aisle
A baleful beauty and a code unclear.
Torn and tattered by this Titus Groan
I will not find my flame-green noon
In his labyrinth's language I am lost:
Vowels of anguish, voices not my own.
The sea-cow moves through shadowed night
The curdled clouds are flayed and soured
The owls now rise from ivied nests
But in the dark these words will spark the light.