The Shapes of Night (A ghazal)

 

In mist they rose, in mist they moved: the shapes of night,
Through fogbound fen the dark unloved: the shapes of night.
Out of the aged, wounded ground, as swift as shadows cast by light 
Giving dark knowledge as a gift: the shapes of night.
Some change and howl when moon is bright 
Some croak the strange call of a toad - the shapes of night
Respond to both and yet still more, when time is right 
From books skin bound and fastened fast, the shapes of night
Impress on willing tongues the cast, the working of the powerful code 
That leaves the waning sun aghast. The shapes of night,
Are thin and lean and stretched and frail,
Self-worn as onion-skin or veil: the shapes of night.
And yet their students grow in might 
vampire, and lich and ancient ill - the shapes of night.
Fragile is evil's source, and sour - ancient as any hoarded spite 
The mewling serpents still devour: the shapes of night.
The suns go up, the suns go down, the gullets of the swallowing blight 
And all that ends, ends in their sway: the shapes of night
In their Processional we pass, we little motes of feeling light 
They teach us what we should not know: the shapes of night.
And thus the poet too is touched, and driven slowly mad with fright,

T'was Bucher-Jones who wrought this woe, embittered by the shapes of night.