A moth sucks at a flaming flower:
The moon beams on the old church-tower:
I watched the moth and rising moon,
One silver tip
Of glimmer, slip
Through ghostly tree-tops, deep with June,
To dream above the church an hour.

The gray moth on the dewy pod
Dreams; and the sleepy poppies nod
Their drugged heads in the languid breeze,
That whispers low
Of some dim woe,
And spirit-like among the trees,
Strews snowy petals on the sod.

My soul dreams at life's blood-red heart
Of that thou art: of thee, who art
All silence: saying something fair
As phantoms know
When moon-flowers blow
And spirits meet: the beauty rare
Of which thou, too, hast grown a part.

My heart, behold, is but a bloom
A pale thought clings to by a tomb,
A tomb that holds the one I love,
All wan of cheek,
Whom, wild and weak,
My heart bows down and breaks above,
Grief-haunted in the moonlit gloom.

We have the fairy tales by heart,
No longer tremble at a bishop’s hat,
And the thunder’s first note;
We have these little things off pat,
Avoid church as a rat;
We scorn the juggernaut,
And the great wheels’ rut;
Half of the old gang’s shot,
Thank God, but the enemy stays put.

We know our Mother Goose and Eden,
No longer fear the walker in the garden,
And the fibs for children;
The old spells are undone.
But still ghosts madden,
A cupboard skeleton
Raises the hairs of lad and maiden.

If dead men walked they, too, would holler 
At sight of death, the last two fisted killer
Stained a blood colour;
A panic’s pallor
Would turn the dead yellow.

We have by heart the children’s stories,
Have blown sky high the nursery of fairies;
Still a world of furies
Burns in many mirrors.

Death and evil are twin spectres.
What shall destruction count if these are fixtures?
Why blot the pictures
Of elves and satyrs
If these two gnomes remain unmoved by strictures?

We have the stories backwards,
Torn out magic from the hearts of cowards
By nape and gizzards;
There are two laggards,
Death and evil, too slow in heeding words.

Tear by the roots these twin growths in your gut;
Shall we learn fairy tales off pat,
Not benefit from that?
Burn out the lasting rot,
Fear death as little as the thunder’s shot,
The holy hat.