Collected Works (Vol. I)

THE FIVE KISSES 97 Nor even the hellish fire of Etna’s maw. But lucklessly we came upon a pool Dank, dark, and stagnant, evil to the touch, Oozing towards us, but sucked suddenly, Silently, horribly, by slow compulsion Into the slipping sand, and vanishing, Whereon we sawa little boat appear, And in it such a figure as we knew Was Death. But she, intolerant of delay, Hailed him. The vessel floated to our feet, And Death was not. She leapt within, and bent Her own white shoulders to the thwart, and bade Me steer, and keep stern waich with sword unsheathed For fear of something that her soul had seen Above. And thus upon the oily black Silent swift river we sailed out to reach Its source, no longer feeling as compelled, But led by some incomprehensible Passion. And here lewd fishes snapped at us, And watersnakes writhed silently toward Our craft. But these I fought against, and smote Head from foul body, to our further ill, For frightful jelly-monsters grew apace, And all the water grew one slimy mass Of crawling tentacles. My sword was swift That slashed and slew them, chiefly to protect The toiling woman, and assure our path Through this foul hell. And now the very air Is thick with cold wet horrors. sword Trenchant, that tore their scaly essences— Like Lucian’s sailor writhing in the clutch Of those witch-vines—I slashed about like light, And noises horrible of death devoured The hateful suction of their clinging arms And wash of slipping bellies. Presently Sense failed, and—Nothing! By-and-by we woke In a most beautiful canoe of pearl Lucent on lucent water, in a sun VOL. I. With my That was the heart of spring. But the green land Seemed distant, with a sense of aery height ; As if it were below us far, that seemed Around. And as we gazed the water grew Ethereal, thin, most delicately hued, Misty, as if its substance were dissolved In some more subtle element. We heard ‘“O passers over water, do ye dare To tread the deadlier kingdoms of the air?” Whereat Icried: Arise! And then the pearl Budded with nautilus-wings, and upward now Soared. And our souls began to know the death That was about to take us. All our veins Boiled with tumultuous and bursting blood ; Our flesh broke bounds, and all our bones grew fierce, As if some poison ate us up. And lo! The air is peopled with a devil-tribe Born of our own selves. These, grown furious At dispossession by the subtle air, Contend with us, who know the agony Of half life drawn out lingering, who groan Eaten as if by worms, who dash ourselves Vainly against the ethereal essences That make our boat, who vainly strive to cast Our stricken bodies over the pale edge And drop and end it all. No nerve obeys ; But in the torn web of our brains is born The knowledge that release is higher yet. So, lightened of the devils that possessed In myriad hideousness our earthier lives, With one swift impulse, we ourselves shake off The clinging fiends, and shaking even the boat As dust beneath our feet, leap up and run Upward, and flash, and suddenly sigh back Happy, and rest.with limbs entwined at last On pale blue air, the empyreal floor, As on a bank of flowers in the old days Before this journey. So I think we slept. But now, awaking, suddenly we feel A sound as if within us, and without, So penetrating and so self-inspired G