Downstairs a clock had chimed, two o'clock only.

Then outside from the hen-roost crowing came.

But why should Shift-wing call against the clock,

Three hours from dawn? The shutters click and knock,

And he remembers a sad superstition

Unfitting for the sick-bed—Turn aside,

Distract, divide, ponder the simple tales

That puzzled childhood; riddles, turn them over,

Half-riddles, answerless, the more intense!—

Lost bars of music tinkling with no sense

Recur, drowning uneasy superstition.

Mouth open, he was lying, this sick man,

And sinking all the while; how had he come

To sink? On better nights his dream went flying,

Dipping, sailing the pasture of his sleep,

But now, since clock and cock, had sunk him down

Through mattress, bed, floor, floors beneath, stairs, cellars,

Through deep foundations of the manse; still sinking

Through unturned earth. How had he cheated space

With inadvertent motion or word uttered

Of too-close-packed intelligence (such there are)

That he should penetrate with sliding ease,

Dense earth, compound of ages, granite ribs

And groins? Consider, there was some word uttered,

Some abracadabra—then like a stage-ghost,

Funereally with weeping, down, drowned, lost!