The Soul of Osiris

34 THE SOUL OF OSIRIS. Dissolves it utterly. O bid them go, These white-faced boys, where calmer rivers flow, And birds less passionate invoke the spring, And seek their loves with weaker, wearier wing. Turn back from safety—Let God’s rivers pour Brimstone and fire, and all his fountains roar Lava and hail of hell upon my head, So be he leave us altogether dead, Burnt in that shameful whirlwind of his ire, Consumed in one tall pyramid of fire Whose bowers of flame shall tell the sky of God How we despised his feet with thunder shod, And conquered, clasping, all the host of death. Turn to me, touch me, mix thy very breath With mine to mingle floods of fiery dew With flames of purple, like the sea shot through With golden glances of a fiercer star. Turn to me, bend above me ; you may char These olive shoulders with an old-time kiss, And fix thy mouth upon me for such bliss Of sudden rage rekindled. Turn again, And make delight the minister of pain, And pain the father of a new delight, And light a lamp of torture for the night Too grievous to be borne without a cry To rend the very bowels of the sky And make the archangel gasp—a sudden pang, Most like a traveller stricken by the fang Of the black adder whose squat head springs up, A flash of death, beneath a cactus cup.