The King and the Wraith

KING.

Who art thou, who art thou, indistinct as the spray
Rising up from a torrent in vapour and cloud?
Ghastly Phantom, obscuring the splendour of day
And enveloped in awe, as a corpse with a shroud?

WRAITH.

King, my form is thy shade,
And my life is thy breath;
Lo, thy likeness display'd
In the mirror of Death!

KING.

My veins are as ice! 'Tis my voice that I hear!
'Tis my form coming forth from the cloud that I see!
My voice?--can its sound be so dread to my ear?
My form?--can myself be so loathly to me?

WRAITH.

Never Man comes in sight
Of himself till the last;
In the flicker of light
When the fuel is past!

KING.

Nay, avaunt, lying Spectre, my fears are dispell'd,
For the likeness that fool'd me is fading away,
And I see, where the shape of a king was beheld,
But the coil of an earthworm that creeps into clay.

WRAITH.

As thy shade I began;
As thyself I depart;
And thy last looks, O Man,
See the worm that thou art!