At midnight on the Emperor’s pavement flit
Flames that no faggot feeds, nor steel has lit,
Nor storm disturbs, flames begotten of flame,
Where blood-begotten spirits come
And all complexities of fury leave,
Dying into a dance,
An agony of trance,
An agony of flame that cannot singe a sleeve.

Light like the wan blue flames that wave
Their death-torch o'er the murderer's grave ;
And flickering shapes beset the way,
Watching in gloom to seize their prey,
Most terrible, for that the eye
Wander'd in dim uncertainty ;

Silence had entered me.
It was like the night, and my memories-they were like stars
in that they were fixed, though of course
if one could see as do the astronomers
one would see they are unending fires, like the fires of hell.