6 ORACLES
Why not the Devil’s portrait
Graven in Walham Green?
Why with the bare suggestion
Dare we insult our Queen?
The flame-tongue of passion
Is lambent and strong;
In mystical fashion
Sucks sweetness from shade,
As the voice of thy song
Give me the golden trumpet In the halls of the dead,
Blown at the judgment-day,
Closing the gate of mercy
Over the Cast Away.
Melt me its gold to money,
Coin me that small, small ring
Stamped with the Hoof of Satan,
Bearing the name of King.
Then, in the murky midnight,
Silently lead me down,
Down into Hell’s dark portals,
Far in the West of Town.
Then to the shrieks of devils
Writhing in torments keen,
Sing me the song that tells me
Ever of Walham Green.
Sing of the little half-sovereign
Dancing in golden sheen ;
Leave me in Hell—or, better,
Leave me in Walham Green.
ODE TO SAPPHO.
O LESBIAN maiden !
O pluméd and snowlike in glory of white- |
ness !
O mystical brightness
With love-lyrics laden !
Joy’s fulness is fainting for passion and
sorrow,
To-night melts divine to the dawn of
to-morrow,
O Lesbian maiden !
Breaking fitful and wild,
Weird waking the slumber of Venus,
the sleep of her child,
O Lesbian maiden !
Thy tongue reaches red
On that pillar of might !
Flaming gold from thy head
Is a garland of light
On the forehead of night,
As we lie and behold
All the wonders untold
That the joys of desire
In their secrets enfold,
As the pillars of fire
On the ocean of old!
O Lesbian maiden !
The delight of thy lips
Is the voice of the Spring
That the nightingales sing
Over Winter's eclipse,
While my fingers enring
The white limbs of thy sleep
And my lips suck the lips
Of the house of my dream,
And press daintily deep,
Till the joys are supreme
That thine amorous mouth
On the home of thy love
Would exhaust the fierce drouth
Of the rivers thereof,
Till thy white body quiver
With mystic emotion
As the star-blossoms shiver.
On silvery river
Rushed into the ocean !
O Lesbian maiden !