Collected Works (Vol. II)

CALL OF THE SYLPHS 19 Coldly they set themselves to gaze on me, Like passers-by a madman that they see— I heard them laugh and chuckle, as I think, Now interchange a signal, now a wink. ** Let us at leisure view this caricature, This shade of Hamlet mimicking his posture, The doubting look and hair flung wide to wind ! A pity, eh? to see this merry hind, This beggar, actor out of work, this droll, Because he plays artistically his réle, Wishing to interest in his chanted woes Brooks, eagles, crickets, every flower that blows, And even to us the rubric old who made To howl out publicly his wild tirade?” I could have (for my pride is mountains high, And dominates cloud tops or demon’s cry)— I could have simply turned my sovereign head, Had I not seen, ’mid their obscene herd led, Crime, that the sun has not yet brought to book, Queen of my spirit with the peerless look. And she laughed with them at my dark distress, And turned them oft some dirtiest caress. LE VIN DU SOLITAIRE. THE strange look of a woman of the town, Who glides toward us like the rays that slake The wave-wrought moon within the trembling lake, Where she would dip her careless beauty down ; The last crowns unto which a gambler’s fingers cling ; A libertine caress from hungry Adeline ; The sound of music, lulling, silver, clean, Like the far cry of human suffering : All these, deep bottle! are of little worth Beside the piercing balm thy fertile girth Holds in the reverent poet’s lifted soul ; To him thou givest youth, and hope, and life, And pride, this treasure of all beggar’s strife That gives us triumph, Godhead, for its dole. CHALDEAN FOOLS. CHALDEAN fools, who prayed to stars and fires, Believed there was a God who punished liars. These gods of theirs they often would invoke, Apparently with excellent effect: They trusted to escape the penal smoke By making Truth the trade-mark of their sect. How fortunate that we are Christian Folk, And know these notions to be incorrect ! CALL OF THE SYLPHS)} BEHOLD, I am; a circle on whose hands The twelvefold Kingdom of my Godhead stands. Six are the mighty seats of living breath, The rest sharp sickles, or the horns of death, Which are, and are not, save in mine own power. Sleep they? hour. I made ye stewards in the primal day, And set your thrones in my celestial way. I gave ye power above the moving time That all your vessels to my crown might climb. From all the corners of your fortress caves Ye might invoke me, and your wise conclaves Should pour the fires of increase, life and birth, Continual dewfall to the thirsty earth. Thus are ye made of Justice and of Truth, The Souls of Fury, and the Lords of Ruth. In His great Name, your God’s, I say, arise ! Behold ! His mercies murmur in the skies. His Name is mighty in us to the end. In Him wecry : Move, answer, and descend ! Apply yourselves to us; arise! Forwhy? We are the Wisdom of your God most high } They rise at mine appointed 1 This Fragment is a paraphrase of one of the elemental invocations given in Dr. Dee's famous record of magical working.—A. C,