Orpheus

WARNING MAy I who know so bitterly the tedium of this truly dreadful poem be permitted to warn all but the strongest and most desperate natures from the task of reading or of attempting to read it? I have spent more than three years in fits of alternate enthusiasm for, and disgust of, it. My best friends have turned weeping away when I introduced its name into conversation; my most obse- quious sycophants (including myself) were revolted when I approached the subject, even from afar. I began Book I. in San Francisco one accursed day of May 1go1. I was then a Qabalist, deeply involved in ceremonial magic, with aPantheon of Egypto-Christian colour, in fact, the mere bouillon of which my “ Tann- hauser” was the froth. The idea was to do the “ biggest thing ever done in lyrics.” I bound myself by an oath to admit no rhyme unless three times repeated; to average some high percentage of double rhymes—in brief, to perform a gigantic juggle with the unhappy English language. The whole of this first book is techni- cally an ode (! ! !) and was so designed. So colossal an example of human fatuity truly deserves, and shall have, a complete exposure. ! 1 Vide the Contents. Can the Spirit of Perversity attribute the unwieldi- ness of the structure to its formal symmetry and perfection? 8|