86 
THE BLOOD-LOTUS 
 
They grow in darkness, heat beguiles their sluggish 
kisses, in the wood 
They breathe no murmur that is good, and Satan in 
their blossom smiles. 
 
They murder with the old perfume that maddens all 
men’s blood ;  we die 
Fresh from some corpse-clothed memory, some secret 
redolence of gloom, 
 
Some darkling murmurous song of lust quite strange 
to man and beast and bird, 
Silent in power, not overheard by any snake that eats 
the dust : 
 
No crimson-hooded viper knows, no silver-crested asp 
has guessed 
The strange soft secrets of my breast ;  no leprous cobra 
shall disclose 
 
The many-seated, multiform, divine, essential joys that 
these 
Dank odours bring, that starry seas wash white in 
vain ;  intense and warm