Arthur Davison Ficke

I SAW my grandmother’s shadow on the wall

In firelight; it danced with queer grimaces

As if her serious soul were making faces

At me or life or God or at us all.

And I, an urchin lying at her feet,

Then caught my first glimpse of the secret powers

That stir beneath this universe of ours,

Making a witches’ carnival when they meet.

Across the firelit dusk my sensitive mood

Dreamed out to mingle with the waifs of Time

Whose unsolved stories haunt the poets’ rhyme

And in dark streets of ancient cities brood—

Like sudden ghosts rising above the grime

With beauty and with terror that chills the blood.