William Taylor Coleridge

Christabel’s Dream

'Twas in that hour 'tween sleep and death,
When shadows breathe with borrowed breath,
That Christabel, so pure and fair,
Did loose the ribbons from her hair
And felt a presence in her room—
A lover wreathed in churchyard gloom.

His face was bone, his touch was ice,
Yet in his hollow sockets twice
There burned a phosphorescent flame
That whispered soft her secret name.
She knew not why her heart beat fast—
This spectre from the buried past.

"Art thou," she asked, "my future lord?
Or Death himself without his sword?"
The skeleton made no reply
But bent his skull from regions high,
And where warm lips should crown the face,
White teeth gleamed in their bony place.

She closed her eyes—and in that kiss
Beheld time’s strange paralysis:
Herself in forest dark and deep,
Herself on roses laid to sleep,
Herself in sunlight's golden streams,
Herself in Gothic wedding dreams,
Herself through daguerreotype's eye,
Herself as pixels in the sky—
A thousand selves through time dispersed,
All kissing Death, all blessed and cursed.

When morning came with bells’ bright ring,
And village birds began to sing,
Sweet Christabel lay cold and still,
With one red rose upon the sill.
But in each maiden's midnight dream,
She rises where the moonbeams gleam,
To kiss again those teeth so white,
And dance with Death throughout the night.