iI
THE GARDEN OF JANUS
The webs that snare them—while the knees
Bend to the tyrant God—or unto Sin
The lecher sunder !
Ah! came that undulant light from over or from under?
XIII
It matters not. Come, change! Come, woe! Come,
mask |
Drive Light, Life, Love into the deep !
In vain we labour at the loathsome task
Not knowing if we wake or sleep;
But in the end we lift the pluméd casque
Of the dead warrior ;
Find no chaste corpse therein, but a soft-smiling whore.
XIV
Then I returned into myself, and took
All in my arms, God’s universe:
Crushed its black juice out, while His anger shook
His dumbness pregnant with a curse.
I made me ink, and in a little book
I wrote one word
That God himself, the adder of Thought, had never heard.
XV
It detonated. Nature, God, mankind
Like sulphur, nitre, charcoal, once
G 97