Collected Works (Vol. III)

98 GARGOYLES Her face is fashioned like a moon; Her breasts are tongues of pointed jet ; Her belly of opal fairly hewn ; And round about her neck is set The holy rosary, skull by skull, Polished and grim and beautiful ! This jewelled shape of gold and bronze Is seated on my bosom’s throne ; She takes my muséd orisons To her, to her, to her alone. Oh Kali, Kali, Kali, quell This hooded hate, O Queen of Hell! iler ruby-studded brow is calm ; Her eyes shine like some sleepy flood ; Her breast is oliban and balm ; Her tongue lolls out, a-dripping blood ; She swings my body to and fro ; She breaks me on the wheel of woe ! To her eternal rapture seems Mere nature; underneath the crown Of dusky emeralds there streams A river of bliss to sluice me down With blood and tears, to drown my thought, To bring my being into nought. The cruel teeth, the steady sneer, The marvellous lust of her, I bring Unto my body bright and clear (Dropped poison in a water spring !) To fill me with the utmost sense Of some divine experience. For who but she, the adulterous queen, Made earth and heaven with all its stars, The storm, the hunger epicene, The raging at invisible bars, The hideous cruelty of the whole ?— These are of Kali, O my soul ! The sterile force of bronze and gold Bends to my passion, as it grips With feverish claws the metal cold, And burns upon the brazen lips That, parted like a poppy bud, Have gemméd curves like moons of blood. The mazes of her many arms Delude the eye; they seem to shift As if they spelled mysterious charms Whereby some tall grey ship should drift Out to a windless, tideless sea Motionless from eternity. This then I seek, O woman-form ! O god embowelled in curves of bronze ! The shuddering of a sudden storm To mix me with thy minions The lost, who wait through endless night, And wait in vain, to see the light. For I am utterly consumed In thee, in thee am broken up. The life upon my lips that bloomed Is crushed into a deadly cup, Whose devilish spirit squats and gloats Upon the thirst that rots our throats. Gape wide, O hideous mouth, and suck This heart’s blood, drain it down, expunge This sweltering life of mire and muck ! Squeeze out my passions as a sponge, Till nought is left of terrene wine But somewhat deathless and divine ! Not by a faint and fairy tale We shadow forth the immortal way. No symbols exquisitely pale Avail to lure the secrets grey Of his endeavour who proceeds By doing to abolish deeds. Not by the pipings of a bird In skies of blue on fields of gold, But by a fierce and loathly word The abomination must be told. The holy work must twist its spell From hemp of madness, grown in hell, Only by energy and strife May man attain the eternal rest, Dissolve the desperate lust of life By infinite agony and zest. Thus, O my Kali, I divine The golden secret of thy shrine!