Collected Works (Vol. III)

96 GARGOYLES IMAGES OF DEATH PROLOGUE. PATCHOULI. LIKE memories of love they come, My perfumes in the silver vase: The fragrant root, the odorous gum, Myrrh, aloes, or olibanum :— Anon, like memories of love, they pass ! They pass, and all the wonder-web Of thought and being is unrolled. Like sombre tides there flow and ebb Wonderful things ! not to be told: Beautiful things ! and images of gold. The touch of brown Habiba’s breast, The brimming lip, the cheek of down, The dainty dovelet in its nest : These fade, as ever a palimpsest Like autumn vanishes from gold to brown. Zuleikha, on whose marble knees My bearded head is lazily lain, Shows like some stirring of the breeze Fluctuant in the poppied grain, No more at all: the vulgar sense is slain. Of all the world alone abides The faint perfume of Patchouli, That subtle death in love ; it glides Across the opening dream, derides The fetich folly, immortality. Awake, O dream! Let distant bells And vague muezzins haunt the ear, Gaunt camels kneel by dusky wells, Imagination greyly hear : Allahu akbar! Allahu kabir ! Over inhospitable sands Let the simoom its columns spin ! In snowy vales, untrodden lands, Let there be storm, and bearded bands Of robbers pass around the bubbling skin ! ‘Let there be caves of treasure rare Deep hidden in sepulchral seas; And birds unheard-of darken air With royal wings, like argosies Sailing beneath magnific promontories ! Let Caliphs mete fantastic law And ebon eunuchs swing the sword So swift, so curved,—-let voiceless awe Sit on the palace dome, to draw Some god’s destruction on its smiling lord ! May many a maiden comely clad Revolve in convoluted curls, Till from each pliant pose I had (By virtue of her wondrous whirls) The illusion of a thousand dancing-girls ! Let harlots robed in gold and green Sit slowly waving ivory plumes And wings of palm ; the while their queen Lurks in some horror-house unseen, Damned to be smothered in divine per- fumes ! Let there be scenes of blood and pain, Some Slav beneath the Cossack knout, Some mother ripped, some baby slain ; Let lust move silently about :— Soft laughter hid in all, song whispering out ! Then let these things of form decay, Some subtler dream dissolve their form, As I have seen a cloudlet lay Its forehead on the sea, and pray Some idle prayer to sunset, or the storm ! Yea ! as a cloud in worship-trance Swoons in invisible delight, Let slave and king, let death and dance Shake off their forms, and clothe their light In shrouds of sepulchre, the starless night !