The Cup Of Comus - Proem

The Nights of song and story,     With breath of frost and rain,     Whose locks are wild and hoary,     Whose fingers tap the pane     With leaves, are come again.     The Nights of old October,     That hug the hearth and tell,     To child and grandsire sober,     Tales of what long befell     Of witch and warlock spell.     Nights, that, like gnome and faery,     Go, lost in mist and moon,     And speak in legendary     Thoughts or a mystic rune,     Much like the owlet's croon.     Or whirling on like witches,     Amid the brush and broom,     Call from the Earth its riches,     Of leaves and wild perfume,     And strew them through the gloom.     Till death, in all his starkness,     Assumes a form of fear,     And somewhere in the darkness     Seems slowly drawing near     In raiment torn and sere.     And with him comes November,     Who drips outside the door,     And wails what men remember     Of things believed no more,     Of superstitious lore.     Old tales of elf and dmon,     Of Kobold and of Troll,     And of the goblin woman     Who robs man of his soul     To make her own soul whole.     And all such tales, that glamoured     The child-heart once with fright,     That aged lips have stammered     For many a child's delight,     Shall speak again to-night.     To-night, of moonlight minted,     That is a cup divine,     Whence Death, all opal-tinted,     Wreathed red with leaf and vine,     Shall drink a magic wine.     A wonder-cup of Comus,     That with enchantment streams,     In which the heart of Momus,     That, moon-like, glooms and gleams,     Is drowned with all its dreams.