A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place your sight can knock on, echoing; but here within this thick black pelt, your strongest gaze will be absorbed and utterly disappear: just as a raving madman, when nothing else can ease him, charges into his dark night howling, pounds on the padded wall, and feels the rage being taken in and pacified. She seems to hide all looks that have ever fallen into her, so that, like an audience, she can look them over, menacing and sullen, and curl to sleep with them. But all at once as if awakened, she turns her face to yours; and with a shock, you see yourself, tiny, inside the golden amber of her eyeballs suspended, like a prehistoric fly. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CONTRA MORTEM: THE STONE by HAYDEN CARRUTH TO DISRAELI ON CONSERVATISM by MARIANNE MOORE EMMELINE GRANGERFORD'S 'ODE TO STEPHEN DOLWING BOTS, DEC'D' by SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS GERANIUMS by WILFRID WILSON GIBSON THE BLESSED DAMOZEL by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI THE SISTER'S TRAGEDY by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH ON THE GRASSHOPPER by ANACREON TO THE MISS WEBSTERS, WITH DR. AIKIN'S WISH by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD SONNETS OF MANHOOD: 32. 'LO! ONE CALLS' by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913) |