Collected Works (Vol. III)

LIBER TERTIUS VEL LABORIS 177 But thou, O Titan ! O splendour triform ! Gloomiest dweller Of uttermost night ! My journey enlighten ! O soul of the storm! Waker and queller Of sombre delight, Hecate! hearken The soul of my prayer ! Glitter and darken Through sulphurous air ! Let the sacrifice move thee to joy, the in- voker thy glory declare In words that shall please Thy terrible peace, O speedy to save, In flames of fine fire that bedew the deepest Tartarean cave ! [/voking HECATE] O triple form of darkness! Sombre splen- dour! Thou moon unseen of men! Thou huntress dread ! Thou crownéd demon of the crownless dead! O breasts of blood, too bitter and too tender ! Unseen of gentle spring, Let me the offering Bring to thy shrine’s sepulchral glittering ! I slay the swart beast ! I bestow the bloom Sown in the dusk, and gathered in the gloom Under the waning moon, At midnight hardly lightening the East; And the black lamb from the black ewe’s dead womb I bring, and stir the slow infernal tune Fit for thy chosen priest. Here where the band of Ocean breaks the road Black-trodden, deeply-stooping, to the abyss, I shall salute thee with the nameless kiss Pronounced toward the uttermost abode Of thy supreme desire. I shall illume the fire Whence thy wild stryges shall obey the lyre, VOL. IT. Whence thy Lemurs shall gather and spring round, Girdling me in the sad funereal ground With faces turnéd back, My face averted ! I shall consummate The awful act of worship, O renowned Fear upon earth, and fear in hell, and black | Fear in the sky beyond Fate! I hear the whining of thy wolves! I hear The howling of the hounds about thy form, Who comest in the terror of thy storm, And night falls faster ere thine eyes appear Glittering through the mist. O face of woman unkissed Save by the dead whose love is taken ere they wist ! Thee, thee I call! Odire one! O divine! I, the sole mortal, seek thy deadly shrine, Pour the dark stream of blood, A sleepy and reluctant river Even as thou drawest, with thine eyes on mine, To me across the sense-bewildering flood That holds my soul for ever ! The night falls back ; The shadows give place; The threefold form Appears in the black, As a direful face Half seen in the storm. I worship, I praise The wonderful ways Where the smitten rays Of darkness sunder. The hand is lifted ; The gates are rifted ; The sound is as thunder ! She coines to the summons, Her face as a woman’s, Her feet as a Fear’s, Turned back on her path For a sign of wrath :— She appears, she appears ! M