Mother Death

Mother Death comes dancing with her brood,
Their little skulls agape, their great, dark eyes
Like ebon pools reflecting midnight mood.
Close there beside the horned huntsman cries
His call to follow with a soundless throat;
The beasts that bay and howl before his steed
Do so in eerie silence, shredded coats
Half covering wounds that have no blood to bleed.
The monk's bald pate shines ivory and bare;
The armored knight doth rattle in his steel;
The maid's thin fingers comb through flaxen hair
That comes away in clumps. Their lips are sealed;

The dead tell not what lies upon the way,
Yet more there is to Death than Life's decay!