#clematis vine

Clematis

Sunlight pierces the understory. Clematis vines have gone to seed along the riparian corridor.

It was a graveyard scene. The crescent moon

Performed a devil’s purpose for she shewed

The earth a-heap where smooth it should have lain;

And in and out the tombs great witches’ cats

Played tig-a-tag and sang harmoniously.

Beneath the deathly slopes the palings stood

Catching the moonlight on their painted sides,

Beyond, the waters of a mighty lake

Stretching five furlongs at its fullest length

Lay as a looking-glass, framed in a growth

Of leafless willows; all its middle part

Was open to the sky, and there I saw

Embosomed in the lake together lie

Great unaffected vampires and the moon.

A Christian crescent never would have lent

Unchristian monsters such close company

And so I say she was no heavenly light

But devil’s in that business manifest

And as the vampires seemed quite unaware

I thought she’d lost her soul for nothing lying there.