The Honourable Adulterers

LYRICAL AND DRAMATIC. 121 So verily long time I rode afar. My course was lighted by some gloomy star That boded evil, that I would not shun, But rather welcome, as the storm the sun, Lowering and red, a hurtful avatar, Whose fatal forehead like itself is dun. It was no wonder when the second day Showed me a city on the desert way, Whose brazen gates.were open, where within _ I saw a statue for a sign of sin, And saw the people come to it and pray, Before its mouth set open for a gin. And seeing me, a clamour rose among — Their dwarfish crowds, whose barbarous harsh tongue Grated, a hateful sound ; they plucked me down, And mocked me through the highways of the town, And brought me where they sang to censers swung A grotesque hymn before her body brown. For Sin was like a woman, and her feet Shone, and her face was like the windy wheat; Her eyes were keen and horrible and cold, Her bronze loins girdled with the sacred gold ; Her lips were large, and from afar how sweet ! How fierce and purple for a kiss to hold ! om . But somehow blood was black upon them ; blood In stains and clots and splashes; and the mud Trampled around her by the souls that knelt, |