C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Helen Gray Cone (1859–1934)

MINE enemy builded well, with the soft blue hills in sight;

But betwixt his house and the hills I builded a house for spite:

And the name thereof I set in the stonework over the gate,

With a carving of bats and apes; and I called it the House of Hate.

And the front was alive with masks of malice and of despair;

Horned demons that leered in stone, and women with serpent hair:

That whenever his glance would rest on the soft hills far and blue,

It must fall on my evil work, and my hatred should pierce him through.

And I said, “I will dwell herein, for beholding my heart’s desire

On my foe:” and I knelt, and fain had brightened the hearth with fire;

But the brands they would hiss and die, as with curses a strangled man,

And the hearth was cold from the hour that the House of Hate began.

And I called with a voice of power, “Make ye merry, all friends of mine,

In the hall of my House of Hate, where is plentiful store and wine;

We will drink unhealth together unto him I have foiled and fooled!”

And they stared and they passed me by, but I scorned thereby to be schooled.

And I ordered my board for feast, and I drank in the topmost seat

Choice grape from a curious cup, and the first it was wonder-sweet;

But the second was bitter indeed, and the third was bitter and black,

And the gloom of the grave came on me, and I cast the cup to wrack.

Alone, I was stark alone, and the shadows were each a fear,

And thinly I laughed but once, for the echoes were strange to hear;

And the wind on the stairway howled, as a green-eyed wolf might cry,

And I heard my heart: I must look on the face of a man or die!

So I crept to my mirrored face, and I looked and I saw it grown

(By the light in my shaking hand) to the like of the masks of stone:

And with horror I shrieked aloud as I flung my torch and fled;

And a fire-snake writhed where it fell, and at midnight the sky was red.

And at morn, when the House of Hate was a ruin despoiled of flame,

I fell at mine enemy’s feet and besought him to slay my shame;

But he looked in mine eyes and smiled, and his eyes were calm and great:

“You rave or have dreamed,” he said,—“I saw not your House of Hate!”