Alice: An Adultery

MESSALINE Beneath the living cross I lie And swoon towards eternity : Prodigious sinewy shapes, and lean And curving limbs of Messaline. The deep arched eyes, the floating mane,— One pierces, one wraps-in my brain. A crown of thorn, a spear of clean Cold fire of dying Messaline. Swart tangles of devouring hair, The scorpion labyrinth and snare, Leprous entanglements of sense, The Imminence of the Immense. And in the deep hard breath I draw Kissed from her strangling mouth and maw, I feel the floating deaths that dwell 9