I]
Save death alone! I see no happy end,
No happy end for this divine beginning.
Child! let us front a fate too ill to mend,
Take joy in suffering for the sake of sinning.
Ay! from your lips I pluck the purple seed
Of that pomegranate sleek Persephone
Tasted in hell; the irrevocable deed
I do, and it is done. Naught else could be
For us, the chosen of so severe a god
To act so high a tragedy, the elect
To suffer so, and so rejoice, the rod
And scourge ofourown shame, thegilt and decked
Oxen that go to our own sacrifice
At our own consecrated shrine of vice.
Il
Over the desert ocean of distress
Wereach pale eager hands that quiver and bleed
With life of these our hearts that surge and stress
In agony of the meditated deed.
For in the little coppice by the gate
Wherein I drew you shy and sly, and kissed
Yourlips, your hushed “TI love you” smooth and straight
Sweeping to wrap us in the glittering mist
Of hell that holds us — even there I heard
The lacerating laugh of fate ring out,
The dog-faced god pronounce the mantic word,
And saw the avengers gather round about
Our love. The Moirae neither break nor bend ;
The Erinyes hunt us to — no happy end.