FOLLOW A WORD THROUGH THE COLLECTION
Search the corpus.
Phrase search ignores case and repeated whitespace. All-words search finds whole words anywhere on the same page. OCR errors can affect results.
30 matching pages
Page 1 of 21905 · PDF PAGE 45
THE BLOOD-LOTUS THE ashen sky, too sick for sleep, makes my face grey ; my senses swoon. Here, in the glamour of the moon, will not some pitying godhead weep For cold grey anguish of her eyes, that look to God, and look in vain, For death, the anodyne of pain, for sleep, earth’s trivial paradise ? Sleep I forget. Her silky breath no longer fans my ears ; I dream I float on some forgotten stream that hath a savour still of death, A sweet warm smell of hidden flowers whose heavy petals kiss the sun, Fierce tropic poisons every one that fume and s…
1905 · PDF PAGE 53
…ling thy perfume fill my hair, And all thy dark caresses wear sin’s raiment on thy melting lips— Nay, by the witchcraft of thy charms to sleep, nor dream that God survive ; To wake, this only to contrive—fresh passions in thy naked arms ; And, at that moment when thy breath mixes with mine, like wine, to call Each memory, one merged into all, to kiss, to sleep, to mate with death !
1905 · PDF PAGE 106
…r with tender Kisses like song, or shrills upon the scale, Till quivering moonrays shake again, to send her Luminous tunes through every sleepy vale, While the slow dancers rhythmically reap The fairy amaranth, and silver wheat of sleep. Now over all that scythe of sleep impending Mows the pale flowers of vision following ; Dryad and bird and fount and valley blending Into one dreamy consciousness of spring ; And all the night and all the world is ending, And all the souls that weep and hearts that sing ! So, as the dew hides in the lotus bloss…
1905 · PDF PAGE 99
…ooth-moving ocean of the west Under the palm and cactus as it rolled, Immortal blue, fixed with immortal gold, Moving in rapture with my sleeping breast ! The young delicious green, the drunken smell Of the fresh earth, the luxury of the glow Where many colours mingled into snow, Song-marvels in the air desirable. So lazily I lay, and watched my eyes In the deep fountain’s sun-stirred harmonies. I loved myself ! O Thou ! (I cried) divine Woman more lovely than the flowers of earth ! O Self-hood softer than the babe at birth, Sweeter than love, …
1905 · PDF PAGE 93
…no morrow. Days and desires, what are these ? Nay, I have torn from my breast passion and love and despair : Sought in thy palaces rest, sleep that awaited me there ; Sleep that awaits me in vain : I have done with the hope of things ; Passion and pleasure and pain have stung me, and lost their stings. Only abides there a hollow, void as the heart of the earth. Echo may find it and follow, dead from the day of her birth. Life, of itself not insatiate ; death, not presuming to be ; Share me intense and emaciate, waste me, are nothing to me. Stil…
1905 · PDF PAGE 54
TRANSLATIONS FROM BAUDELAIRE CAIN ET ABEL SEED of Abel, eat, drink, sleep ! God shall smile complaisantly. Seed of Cain, in the muck-heap Crawl and miserably die ! Seed of Abel, thine oblation Sweet to Seraphim doth smell : Seed of Cain, shall thy damnation Ever find the bounds of Hell ? Race of Abel, see thy seed And thy cattle flourish more ! Race of Cain, for hunger’s need, Like a dog thy bowels roar. Seed of Abel, warm thy paunch At thy patriarchal hall ! Seed of Cain, on shivering haunch Squat in cave, despised jackal ! 49
1905 · PDF PAGE 172
…he hollow of earth ; grand gloom burned royally therein ; I was well hid in the shadow ; here I realized myself to be in that sepulchral sleep wherein were mirrored all these things of mystery. So the long passage steeply sliding ever up to my feet where I stood in the emptiness ; at last a sure abiding only in absolute ceasing of all sense, and all perceived or understood or knowable ; thus, purple and intense, I beheld the past that leads to peace, from royal heights of mastery to sleep, from self-control imperial to an end, therefore I shape…
1905 · PDF PAGE 27
… of thy lips Is the voice of the Spring That the nightingales sing Over Winter’s eclipse, While my fingers enring The white limbs of thy sleep And my lips suck the lips Of the house of my dream, And press daintily deep, Till the joys are supreme That thine amorous mouth On the home of thy love Would exhaust the fierce drouth Of the rivers thereof, Till thy white body quiver With mystic emotion As the star-blossoms shiver On silvery river Rushed into the ocean ! O Lesbian maiden !
1905 · PDF PAGE 26
…weetness from shade, As the voice of thy song In the halls of the dead, Breaking fitful and wild, Weird waking the slumber of Venus, the sleep of her child, O Lesbian maiden ! Thy tongue reaches red On that pillar of might ! Flaming gold from thy head Is a garland of light On the forehead of night, 2I
1905 · PDF PAGE 84
THE STORM Written on the North Atlantic Ocean. IN the sorrow of the silence of the sunset, when the world’s heart sinks to sleep, And the waking wind arises from the wedding of the aether and the deep, There are perfumes through the saltness of the even ; there are hints of flowers afar ; And the God goes down lamented by the lonely vesper star. The monsters rise around us as we move in moving mist, Slow whales that swim as musing, and lo ! or ever we wist, Looms northward in the grey, mysterious ice, cathedral high, Clad in transparent clouds …
1905 · PDF PAGE 110
…rds night, Craving the perfumed light Of the stars lustrous, and the gem-born moon. Dewy with clustered diamond, The long land swoons to sleep ; the sea sleeps and yet wakes beyond. Here, in the crescent beach and bay, the sea, Curven and carven in warm shapes of dream, Answers the love-song of the lilied stream, And moves to bridal music. Stern and free, I05
1905 · PDF PAGE 97
…he skies I see no hope of any sun or star ; On earth there blooms no rose, no nenuphar ; No cross is set for hope of sacrifice. I cannot sleep, I cannot wake ; and death Passes me by with his desirèd breath. 92
1905 · PDF PAGE 56
…us hands ! O Satan, have pity of my long misery ! Thou whose clear eye discerns the arsenals deep, Where the small folk of buried metals sleep ! O Satan, have pity of my long misery ! Whose broad hand hides the giddy precipice From sleepers straying about some edifice ! O Satan, have pity of my long misery ! Whose skill makes supple the old bones, at needs, Of the belated sot, ’mid surging steeds ! O Satan, have pity of my long misery !
1905 · PDF PAGE 61
… the curses deep That daily reach his Seraphim divine ? Like to a tyrant gorged with meat and wine, Our blasphemous music lulleth him to sleep. II Tears of the martyrs, and saints torturèd, Must prove intoxicating symphonies, Since, spite of blood-price paid to gain them ease, The heavens therewith are not yet satiated. III Jesus ! recall Gethsemane afresh, Where thy simplicity his pity sought Who in his heaven heard, and mocked for nought, Coarse hangmen pierce with nails thy living flesh. IV When on thy godhead spat the virulence Of scum of s…
1905 · PDF PAGE 80
THE HERMIT’S HYMN TO SOLITUDE 75 Touch, draw me with thy kiss Into thine own deep bliss, Into thy sleep, thy life, thy imperishable crown ! Let that young godhead in thine eyes Pierce mine, fulfil me of their secrecies, Thy peace, thy purity, thy soul impenetrably wise. II All things which are complete are solitary ; The circling moon, the inconscient drift of stars, The central systems. Burn they, change they, vary ? Theirs is no motion beyond the eternal bars. Seasons and scars Stain not the planets, the unfathomed home, The spaceless, unform…
1905 · PDF PAGE 133
… this, The shadowy bending to the first sweet kiss That surely could not end, though earth should end. Therefore my shut eyes blend With sleep’s own secret eyes and eyelashes, Long and deep ecstasies, Knowing as now I know—at last—how this Foreshadows my own bliss Of falling into death when life is tired. For all things desired Not one as death is so desirable, Seeing all sorrows pass, all joys endure, All lessons last. Not heaven and not hell (My spirit is grown sure) Await the lover But death’s veil draws, life’s mother to discover, Nature ; …
1905 · PDF PAGE 70
…h of Darkness : even so I may attain the light. For from the Abyss I came before my birth : from those dim halls And silence of a primal sleep ! And He, The voice of Ages, answered me and said : Behold ! for I am He that formulates In darkness ! Child of Earth ! the Light doth shine
1905 · PDF PAGE 63
…eep For one day Lethe on my threatening fear— Wine makes the ear more sharp, the eye more clear. I have sought in Love forgetfulness and sleep— My love’s a bed of needles made to pierce, That drink be given to these women fierce ! LA BEATRICE As I one day to nature made lament In burnt-up lands, calcined of nutriment, As in my musing thought’s vague random dart I slowly poised my dagger o’er my heart, I saw in full noon o’er my forehead form A deathly cloud far pregnant with the storm, That bore a flock of devils vicious Most like to dwarfs cru…
1905 · PDF PAGE 123
II8 ANIMA LUNAE Drew back the veil of sleep ; But strange : the king turned idly, sought to press The bosom where love lately burnt supreme, And found no ivory deep. He turned and sought out life ; and nothing lived : Death, and nought died. The king’s brow fell. Sore grieved He rose, not knowing : and before his will Swan’s throat, dove’s eyes, moon’s breast, and woman’s mouth, And form desirable Of all the clustered love drew back : grew still “ O turn, my lover, turn thee to the South ! ” The girl’s warm song of the Siesta’s hour. Heedless o…
1905 · PDF PAGE 81
…idered its own soul and sought a deadlier deep, And in its monotone mood Of supreme solitude Was neither glad nor sad because it did not sleep ; But with calm eyes abode Patient, its leisure that galactic load, Abode alone, nor even rejoiced to know that it was God.