Collected Works (Vol. II)

I2 ORACLES Far from sun, sea, and spring, from love or light, Imbedded in impenetrable night ; Deeper than ocean, higher than the sky, Vaster than petty loves that dream and die, Insatiate, angry, terrible for lust, Who shrivel God to adamantine dust By our fierce gaze upon him, who would strive Under our wrath, to flee away, to dive Into the deep recesses of his heaven. But we, one joy, one love, one shame for leaven, Quit hope and life, quit fear and death and love, Implacable as God, desired above All loves of hell or heaven, supremely wed, Knit in one soul in one delicious bed More hot than hell, more wicked than all things, Vast in our sin, whose unredeeming wings Rise o’er the world, and flap for lust of death, Eager as any one that travaileth ; So in our lust, the monstrous burden borne Heavy within the womb, we wait the morn Of its fulfilment. Thus eternity Wheels vain wings round us, who may never die But cling as hard as serpent’s wedlock is, One writhing glory, an immortal kiss. - THE BLOOD-LOTUS. THE ashen sky, too sick for sleep, makes my face grey ; my senses swoon. Here, in the glamour of the moon, will not| some pitying godhead weep For cold grey anguish of her eyes, that look to God, and look in vain, For death, the anodyne of pain, for sleep, earth’s trivial paradise? Sleep I forget. Her silky breath no longer ‘fans my ears; I dream I float on some forgotten stream that hath a savour still of death, A sweet warm smell of hidden flowers whose heavy petals kiss the sun, Fierce tropic poisons every one that fume and sweat through forest hours. 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 The scents fulfil; they permeate all lips, all arteries, and fire New murmured music on the lyre that throbs the horrors they create. Omniscient blossom! Is thy red slack bosom fresher for my kiss? Are thy loves sharper? Hast thou bliss in all the sorrow of the dead? Why art thou paler when the moon- grows loftierin the troublous sky? Why dost thou beat and heave when I press lips of fire, hell’s princeliest boon, _ To thy mad petals, green-and gold like angels’ wings, when as a flood God’s essence fills them, and the blood throughout their web grows icy cold?