II 
 
OSE of the World !  Your mystic petals spread 
  Like wings over my head. 
The tide of burning blood upon my face 
Drowns all the floating images 
That danced their spectre saraband 
In Bacchic race, phantastical embrace, 
Upon the sepulchres, the dizzy seas 
Of this my mind, Sabbatic rout that spanned 
These straits my soul !  Ay, they are dead and drowned 
(And damned, I doubt !) Ah God !  I am exhaust 
In the red moon’s holocaust ! 
God !  God !  The chasms secret and profound 
Suck down the porphyry flood 
Of your maniacal, ensorcelled blood 
That maddens and bewitches. 
My life is suffocated—now I swoon— 
I die !  I am in hell, red hell, red hell, 
Circles me closer ;  all the soul’s afire 
As if the boreal moon 
With all the icy Lapland hags 
That shiver on ’s hibernal crags 
Were but a thin white shell 
Hoarding the seed of many a million suns, 
Giving its life up unto its desire— 
Out bursts the womb of my unguessed-at godhead ; 
3 
R