8 ORACLES
A kiss of fire ;
A touch of passionate yearning
Steals higher and higiier—
And kisses are returning !
The strong white grasp draws me still nigher
and nigher,
Our fusing forms in one fierce furnace
burning !
Fails to us speech
In Love’s exultant leaping !
Each merved in each
The golden fruit is reaping !
Wilt slumber, dear? One last kiss, I be-
seech !
Come to us, Death! My love and I are
sleeping!
EPILOGUE TO ‘‘GREEN ALPS.”?
FAREWELL, my book, whose words I have
not given
One tithe of those fierce fires that in me
dwell !
Now, after these long nights that I have
striven,
Farewell !
My spirit burns to know, but may not
tell,
Whether thy leaves, by autumn breezes
driven,
Fly far away beyond the immutable ;
Whether thy soul shall find its home in
heaven,
Or dart far-flaming through the vaults of
hell—
To him that loveth much is much _for-
given.
Farewell!
1 A volume which was never issued. MSS.
and proofs have been carefully destroyed.
Several of the poems in this volume are taken
from that, viz. pp. 6-19.
TWO SONNETS IN PRAISE OF
A PUBLISHER,
WHO SOUGHT TO INFECT OUR YOUTH ©
WITH HIS NOXIOUS WARES.
The ordure of this goat, who is called
‘* Master Leonard.’’—ELIPHAZ LEVI.
He’s the man for muck.— BROWNING.
I.
SMALL coffin-worms that burrow in thy brain
Writhe with delight ; thy rotten body teems
With all infesting vermin, as beseems
The mirror of an obscene mind. In vain
Thy misbegotten brutehood shirks the pain
Of its avenging leprosies: death steams
In all thy rank foul atmosphere: the gleams
Of phosphorescent putrefaction wane.
Thy sordid hands reach through the filth to
snatch
The offal money of a prurient swarm.
Thy liar’s tongue licks liquid dung to hatch
From fetid ulcers with its slimy warm
Venom some fouler vermin, in their nest
Thy rotten heart and thy polluting breast !
II. |
Egg of the Slime! Thy loose abortive lips
Mouth hateful things: thy shifty bloodshot eyes
Lurk craftily to snare some carrion prize,
The dainty morsel whence the poison drips
Unmarked: the maskéd infamy that slips
Into an innocent maw: corrupter wise !
Sly worm of hell! that close and cunning lies
With sucking tentacles for finger-tips.
Earth spits on thee, contagious Caliban !
Hell spits on thee; her sin is spiritual,
Only the awful slime and excrement
That sin sheds off will own thee for a man.
Only the worms in dead men’s bowels that
crawl
To lick a loathlier brother are content.