The Equinox (Volume I, Number VI)

THE RITES OF ELEUSIS As in the blood of murdered things The afirighted augur shaking skries Earthquakeand ruinous fate of kings, Famine and desperate destinies, So in the eyes of Pharaoh shone The hate and loathing that compel In death each damned minion Of Set, the accursed lord of Hell. Yea! in those globes of fire there sate Some cruel knowledge closely curled Like serpents in those halls of hate, Palaces of the Underworld. But in the hell-glow of those eyes The ashen skull of Pharaoh shone White as the moonrays that surprise The invoking Druse on Lebanon. Moreover pylon shouldered round To pylon an unearthly tune, Like phantom priests that strike and sound Sinister sistrons at the moon, And death’s insufferable perfume Beat the black air with golden fans As Turkis rip a Nubian's womb With damascenéd yataghans. Also the taste of dust long dead Ofancient queens corrupt and fair Struck through the temple, subtly sped By demons dominant of the air. Last, on the flesh there came a touch Like sucking mouths and stroking hands That laid their foul alluring smutch Even to the blood’s mad sarabands.