Chief Of Night Dews Unlike The Rest Poem by Emmanuel George Cefai

Chief of Night Dews unlike the rest
The night-dews
Giant and diamond of the Orient
Glimmers
Glitters
In the night of the glow worms
And of the shining socket eyes
Of ghosts and shrouds
Shades and shadows that go round and round.

And the Trumpet of the Sick Night
Sings
Sings
What surfeits it had at the red lust
Of the red dusk
When
The rabbit limped into the bushes
Where the silver aged trees bend to
The soft running stream and
Rushes.

At last
At last
The day they have fixed
To take to the guillotine
My head in effigy
They have already made in
Wax
Already made
Already made
To burn next night.

And
the night dews will weep
And
some humans will weep
And
the silver aged trees will weep
And
the bells that vesper sung will weep
And
the nymphs of the night will weep
And
the goblins that race the plains will weep
And
the arcane rocks of the cliffs will weep
And
the face of the sad will weep
And
the Sphinx will stop grimace and weep
And
The bees that hummed drowsing weep

Limped slow unsteady on its tiny feet
The aged hedgehog.
By the hedges taciturn
It hummed all to itself
A wise nocturne:
Owls heard; their ears pricked
And from another coppice of the trees
Began to sing the lovely nightingales.

Chief of Night Dews unlike the rest
The night-dews
Giant and diamond of the Orient
Glimmers
Glitters
In the night of the glow worms
And of the shining socket eyes
Of ghosts and shrouds