Collected Works (Vol. I)

Oevil beauty £0 Peart of mystery Wherein my being toils, and in the blood Mixed with thy poison finds its stibtle rood, Intoxdvating my divinity ! Disaainful hands behind thee, PE imay take Wha joys Towill but thou walt not awike. MANY WATERS CANNOT QUENCH LOVE! TN my distress Pmade complaint to Death : Thy shadow strides across the starry airs Thou comest as a serpent unaware, Striking love’s heart and crushing out min’s Dreath : Thy destiny is even as God saith To mark the impotence of human prayer, Choke hope, sting all but Love; and never care . If man or flower or sparrow perisheth. Thee, T invoke thee, though no mercy move Thy heart! No power is to thy hate assigned On love (sing, poets! shrill, Pandean reecls !), But me, look on me, how my bosom bleeds— Invoke new power of cruelty ; be kind, And ask authority to quench my love! COENUM FATALE. ‘* La cour d’appel de la volonté de ’homme— C’est le ventre !"’— Old proverb. THE worst of meals is that we have to meet. They trick my purpose and evade my will, Remind my conscience that I love her still, And pull my spirit from its lofty seat. For I withdraw myself: my stealthy feet Seek half-ashamed the alembic which I fill To the epic-mark—one sonnet to distil, In this poor miracle—my love to cheat. 1 Canticles viii, 6, 7. THE COURT OF TIE PROFANE 181 Dinner clings cheerly from my lady's gong. Acmanomust cat in titervals of song! Swilt fect run back to hide my hate of her, And then---that hate Mes trust, as my thought Rests (surely it: beseems the overwrought) And Pam left her slave and aiinister. THE SUMMIEP OF THE AMOROUS MOUNTAIN. To love you, Love, is all my happiness 5 Yo kill you with my kisses: to devour Your whole ripe beauty in the perfect hour That niagles us in one supreme caress 3 To drink the purple of your thighs ; to press Your beating bosom like a living flower3 To die in your embraces, in the shower Thatdews like death your swooning loveliness To knew you love me; that your body leaps With the quick passion of your soul; to know Your fragrant kisses sting my spirit so ; To be one soul where Satan smiles and sleeps 5-- Ah tin the very triumph-hour of Tell Satan himself remembers whence he fell! CONVENTIONAL WICKEDNESS. Berore the altar of Famine and Desire The Two in One, a golden woman stands Holding a heart in her ensanguine hands, The nightly victim of her whore’s attire. Quick sobs of lust instead of prayers inspire some oracle of Death. From many lands Come many worshippers. ‘Lheir fading brands Kekindle from the sacrificial fire. Before the altar of Plenty, Love, and Peace, Stand purer priests in bloodless sacrifice, And quiet hymns of happiness are heard. Here sound no hatreds and no eestasies ; Tere no polluted sacrament of Vice Unveiled! I chose the first without a word !