A Gothic Tale

Framed by our window, skaters, winding in and out the wind, as water reeling so kept in motion, on a well-honed edge spin out a gilded ceiling. Fish, reflecting glow for glow, saints around the sun, are frozen with amazement just one pane below. Skates flash like stars, so madly whirling one can hardly tell which is sky and which the watery floor ... one night two straitlaced couples, a footman over them, rode out in a dappled-horse-drawn sleigh onto the river, a moonlit lark. The ice broke and they—sleigh, footman and all—riding in state, rode straight on into the lidded water. That winter all winter folks twirled over them who—framed in lace, frost the furs, the shiny harness and their smiles the fire that keeps the place—sat benignly watching. “One foot out, one foot in, are we real,” thought one, “we who wander sheepishly in dreams, or they, the really sleepless eyes, under us? And every night who knows (a laughter troubles us like dreams) who skates (a thousand watch fires the stars) above, peering through the pane?”