On reading The Invisible Man
The fire breathed low in the evening room,
Its heart aglow through the tender gloom;
The coals like thoughts that rise, consume,
Then fade in molten dreaming.
Outside, the wind began to moan,
Yet here I sat - content, alone -
With Wells’s words, soft-uttered tone,
Through pages dimly gleaming.
The rain tapped soft on window glass,
Like distant steps that fade and pass;
And in those lines, I watched amass
A world of frost and sorrow.
Iping’s snow lay cold and deep,
The inn awoke from restless sleep;
The stranger’s voice, both hoarse and steep,
Foretold a haunted morrow.
How chill he seemed - that spectral man,
Whose soul outpaced what flesh began;
Invisible, yet more than span
Of mortal sight or reason.
I felt his dread, his lonely fire,
His intellect’s consuming pyre,
His search - half curse, half proud desire -
Defy the bounds of season.
And as the hour grew hushed and late,
The Sherry warmed my thought and fate;
Its amber kiss did consecrate
The spell the tale was weaving.
By Southern Boulevard’s quiet bend,
Where Kenosha’s streetlights softly blend,
I felt the world and story send
Their phantoms, half-believing.
Beside my chair, in dreaming keep,
My Linus stirred from gentle sleep;
His paws did twitch in visions deep,
Yet peace was his dominion.
I broke a teacake, sweet and round,
Its sugar snow a sacred sound -
While in my soul, the fires unwound
Their tender, ghostly pinion.
Then laughter rose, from page to flame,
When Griffin’s madness overcame;
The hearth itself did seem to claim
His wild, unearthly thunder.
And in that light, my mind would stray -
To Rains, whose voice, both firm and fey,
In silver’s glow did once convey
That same cold charm and wonder.
We spoke of him - of Claude’s command,
The bandaged head, the trembling hand;
Of Universal’s mythic brand
That gave his shade its seeming.
And though my friends did laugh and dine,
I felt the tale, its ghostly line,
It whispered still, through Sherry’s wine,
Through smoke and candle gleaming.
So now when night is deep and mild,
And Linus dreams, serene and wild,
I read once more, the book beguiled -
While embers sigh and glisten.
For though unseen, that man remains,
His echo through my thought sustains,
And in those soft, remembered strains,
My soul still stops...to listen.
GBS
2015
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