There in the calamus he stands

With frog-webbed feet and bat-winged hands;

His glow-worm garb glints goblin-wise;

And elfishly, and impishly,

Above the gleam of owlet eyes,

A death's-head cap of downy dyes

Nods out at me, and beckons me.

Now in the reeds his face looks white

As witch-down on a witches' night;

Now through the dark, old, haunted mill,

All eerily, all flickeringly

He flits; and with a whippoorwill

Mouth calls, and seems to syllable,

"Come follow me! oh, follow me!"

Now o'er the sluggish stream he wends,

A slim light at his fingers' ends;

The spotted spawn, the toad hath clomb,

Slips oozily, sucks slimily;

His easy footsteps seem to come—

Like bubble-gaspings of the scum—

This side of me; that side of me.

There by the stagnant pool he stands,

A foxfire lamp in flickering hands;

The weeds are slimy to the tread,

And mockingly, and gloatingly,

With slanted eyes and pointed head,

He leans above a face long dead,—

The face of me! of me! of me!