A Ritual Dance: Sleep

Hollow the world in the moonlit hour when the birds are shadows small,
Lost in the swarm of giant leaves and myriad branches tall;
When vast thick boughs hang across the sky like solid limbs of night,
Dug from still quarries of grey-black air by the pale transparent light,
And the purple and golden blooms of the sun, each crimson and spotted flower,
Are folded up or have faded away, as that still intangible power
Floats out of the sky, falls shimmering down, a silver-shadowy bloom,
On the spear-pointed forest a fragile crown, in the soul a soft, bright gloom;
Hollow the world when the shadow of man lies prone and still on its floor,
And the moonlight shut from his empty heart weeps softly against his door,
And his terror and joy but a little dream in the corner of his house,
And his voice dead in the darkness 'mid the twittering of a mouse.

Hollow the world! hollow the world!
And its dancers shadow-grey;
And the Moon a silver-shadowy bloom
Fading and fading away;
And the forest's grey vapour, and all the trees
Shadows against the sky;
And the soul of man and his ecstasies
A night-forgotten cry.
Hollow the world! hollow the world!