Gigantic spiders spun their webs under the
moon between the walls of the tombs;—vipers
glided over my feet;—the vampire hovered
above under the stars; and fireflies like corpse-lights circled about the resting-places of the
dead. Great vines embraced the marbles green
with fungus-growths; the ivy buried its lizard feet in the stones;—lianas had woven a
veil, thick as that of Isis, across the epitaphs
carven above the graves. But I found her
tomb! I would have reached it, as I had sworn,
even in the teeth of Death and Hell!
I tore asunder the venomous plants which clung to the marble like reptiles;—but the blood poured from my hands upon her name; — and I could not find one unreddened spot to kiss. And I heard the blood from my fingers dripping with a thick, dead sound, as of molten lead, upon the leaves of the uptorn plants at my feet.
*
* *
And the dead years rose from their graves of mist and stood around me! I saw the moss-green terrace where I received her first kiss that filled my veins with madness;—the marble
