Émile Nelligan, "The Terrace with its Spectres"

[rfmcdonald]

When the dismal terrace again I see
Where turrets bristle from a haunt chateau
The nameless fear of ghosts from long ago
Crosses my whole being and flattens me.

My eye touches, as Dante was wont to see,
At eve some weird and wandering nearby glow
When the dismal terrace again I see
Where turrets bristle from a haunt chateau.

A hellish race returns posthumously
There to sing its loves to the trumpet's roar,
Beldames and knights in funeral attire
Eclipsed without trace as day dawns free

When the dismal terrace again I see


- from The Complete Poems of Émile Nelligan, edited and translated by Fred Cogswell, (Montréal: Harvest House, 1983), p 119.