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.
24 matching pages
Page 1 of 21910 · PDF PAGE 136
… As the dragon swallows up the moon ! CHAU See, she will swoon. This is magnificent. I would not lose the event — Ho ! boy, bring wine ! Black wine in jars of jade Cooled all these months in hoarded snow ! Black wine with purple starlight in its bosom, Oily and sweet as the soul of a brown maid Brought from the forenoon’s archipelago, Her brows bound bright with many a scarlet blossom — Like the blood of the slain that flowered free When we met the black men knee to knee ! ALEXANDER Brothers, how found you me ?
1910 · PDF PAGE 155
…th poppy-flowers. Pah ! I am sick of these delirious hours. John’s lips are cool like olive-oil — and thine, Even at the best, like some black stormy wine. MAGDA Oh beast thou art ! Didst thou not surely quicken me With child ? ISSA Thy lewdness and thy lowness sicken me. Nay, let the heavy-fringed purple lashes Lie still — my lust is burnt to bitter ashes ! The wrinkled eyepits black with grime and kohl Are like black bogs to suck away my soul. The coarse vermilion on thy cheeks is fire Of hell to blast the charred stump of desire. The blue ta…
1910 · PDF PAGE 152
IV THE BLACK BEAN
1910 · PDF PAGE 146
… some masterpiece Were wrought — I know not how — pray cease ! Leave me with these ! CHAU Midden or maiden, we must see the birth Of thy black womb. Why do these moans disturb our mirth ? I will have thee lashed to shreds By this vile groom Unless thou quit thy prating. THE HAG Here’s pay for months of waiting. She detaches the placenta. A black old rotten wine-skin, mangy goat Patched with bat, stork, and stoat !
1910 · PDF PAGE 116
THE WHITE WIND. 63 My maiden lily-bloom. For all my cheeks are flooded with desire And shame, and black foul fire That bubbles in my soul, and shoots its terror Out of these sloe-black eyes Into the lake’s unfathomable mirror, That, laughing back upon me laughing, lies. I will creep in — afar From the frenzy of yon nameless star. But who art thou Descending in a cloud of cherubim ? A moon-white sickle crowns that flashing brow ; Thine head like the wise bird Splendidly grim That utters that unutterable word ; Thy body like the bright sun in his…
1910 · PDF PAGE 180
…that beats with our heart’s blood. See how dejected on their spears The guard lean ! AGRIPPA Rather a thousand years Of strife than this black peace. Accurst I know this night shall be. ISSA I thirst. AGRIPPA Give him to drink ! PUBLIUS How strange a fate ! Those noble eyes irradiate This leprous luster.
1910 · PDF PAGE 181
I28 THE WORLD’S TRAGEDY. AGRIPPA See, the foul Black thing that sits with sneer and scowl Over his head. PUBLIUS What now ? Beshrew Me, but its face is like a Jew ! YAUGH WAUGH Butch ! The game is fairly started. I will back to night and chaos. — Ha ! Hoo ! Formlessly presiding Over the ruined earth. Ga ! Ga ! Ab — ab — ab — ab — ab — He flies off. ISSA Behold ! He hath forsaken me. The doom is fixed, but my spirit is free From his loathsome company.
1910 · PDF PAGE 60
THE GARDEN OF EROS. 7 ATTHIS We can sing you ! DORIS Sweet and strong ! ANAXAGORAS Laughter, laughter ! I’m for thee, Doris of the blue-black tresses ! Mine are musical caresses Like the murmur of the sea. HYACINTHOS Chiron, shall we dance with these Under the acacia trees ? CHIRON Yes, if Rhodon there will lend us Her red fleece — like sunset glowing, With the doubtful venture showing Where — what God shall there befriend us ? RHODON Mocker ! I shall come. Beware Lest my manhood match you there !
1910 · PDF PAGE 154
IV THE BLACK BEAN SCENE — A small Syrian mud hut. On a truckle bed strewn with dirty straw lie a naked man and woman. MAGDA Give me more money, Baa-Baa, for a kiss ; One of my kisses. ISSA Youdesh has the bag. (A pause.) Also I weary of thy sordidness. Love is at bottom a most noisome hag. Mother and brothers ! all the pageant passes Like a loud caravan of braying asses ; And now I — love thee ! in this hole of hell. A rotting camel by a dried-up well !
1910 · PDF PAGE 156
…SSA Ay ! and the rot of Egypt pays me for’t. MAGDA To match thy rotten soul, thou pimping ort ! Marrowless bone ! Dry fig ! ISSA Enough, black bitch ! The Seventy shall stone thee for a witch. MAGDA More than enough. I’ll call thy darling itch, Thy— He fists her in the abdomen. ISSA Take the name back to thy bloated belly ! Speak, and I kick thy carcass to a jelly !
1910 · PDF PAGE 114
…adows of the moonless night, craftily. THE GIRL They have not stirred. I am unseen, unheard. Now for some honey of note Plucked from the black lion’s throat ! There is no moon : earth is too still. A heat, yet bitter chill, Is in the air, the windless air. O for a breath of snow-wind on The crest of Lebanon ! I would that boy that laughed
1910 · PDF PAGE 142
…old rogue-elephant. For now the mouth springs open, and a yell Like the shriek of the throat of hell Bursts, and is choked by a vomit of black worms. ALEXANDER All this most critically confirms Our calculations. Boy ! the long pale glass Fashioned of ambergris and chrysopras. Fill it with the old, the ripe Satyrion, And bear it to their Majesties. Anon We shall see ? — GOVINDA Sure, a son
1910 · PDF PAGE 179
…ry and his guard. AGRIPPA These portents much oppress me. PUBLIUS Bodes Also my soul. AGRIPPA Such anger goads My spirit at this strange black time. — This duty hath the eyes of crime! PUBLIUS Duty insists.
1910 · PDF PAGE 170
…ptiness of Things. Yet in the midst appears a certain glory veiling the figure of a tall stern man, the king Alexander. In his hand is a black rod clothed with twin glittering snakes, the royal Uraeus serpents of ancient Khem ; at its point gleams faint and blue A star of six rays, whose light now illumines the pale and tortured features of a man, with outstret- ched arms, who is hanging (apparently) in space. It is Issa, but the weariness is gone ; and noble-strong is the scarred brow of his agony. ALEXANDER. In the puissance of my will, Issa,…
1910 · PDF PAGE 133
…le cloak of anarchy. Misty vapours demon-wrought Fill the cold clear dome of thought. ALEXANDER Mother, I have brought him myrrh. Sorrow black and sinister Shall his name bring to the race. Wheresoever on the earth Shall be heard his hissing name Shall be madness and disgrace, Falsehood, barrenness, and shame For the folk of praise and worth. All the pure, the fair, the young Shall taste curses on his tongue ; But the old, the chill, the base, Shall find beauty in his face. Also, of Astarte’s fruit We have brought him orchis root. Cinquefoil, a…
1910 · PDF PAGE 173
… thy father’s hate accurst, Shall be greener and gladder than at first. ISSA I shall endure then, if the Ultimate Be reached through the black fate. ALEXANDER Let that sustain thee — yet this hour I put forth all my torture-power
1910 · PDF PAGE 121
…us Of robust voices ; the earth heaves and pants As if the seven and seventy elephants Snow-white of Solomon made hither, marched On the black earth sun-parched Into the battle-front ; grave and sonorous, A clang of arms salutes these ears, that twitch To catch the zenith pitch Of aught that, human or divine, Might pour some drowsy wine, Poppy-heads bruised and seethed In milk of asses ivy-wreathed With honey and spice and wine moon-pale Strained though a virgin’s veil — To ease this itch. Enter a Roman Centurion and his guard. THE CENTURION Ha…
1910 · PDF PAGE 175
… its brief glad hour. Next, axes at the root of every tree That strains its top to immortality. Yea, o thou terrible magician, I see the black wings of suspicion Fanning each ear with tales of spite, Blasting each bud with bitter blight. I see the poisonous upas-tree, Its shade the ghastly trinity — Religion, law, morality — Sicken with its stifling breath Human loveliness to death. I myself the tool of priests, Tyrants, merchants, hags and beasts, Lawyers, doctors, artizans, Whores and theologians ! All my life misunderstood Built in slime and…
1910 · PDF PAGE 172
THE GREY NIGHT. II9 Hath grasped at the blackness of the ban : And thus do I crush it. As the storm Whirls shrieking round thy ghastly form Thy spirit’s torture shall abate The bodily pangs of thy fearsome fate. Weak fool ! The fate of Arcady And the whole world — that hung on thee ! Hadst thou but made thee Emperor, And led thy legions into war ! Thou broken reed — a birth unclean, A life sucked up in sordid spleen, A death absurd, most foully wrought To the shape of thy father’s leper-thought. This be thy doom, that thou shalt see The curses …
1910 · PDF PAGE 107
…morously. But now, o Pan, the whole world falls With its reeling rout of Bacchanals Into the gulf, and thy wild note Shrills up from the black Nothing’s throat Like an enchanted harp that playeth Melodies, melodies magniloquent of death. Yea ! o thou golden wan strange-smiling one, Thou art not only cold. Thine ivory came from fierce bull-elephants That trampled Persians in their battle-rage ; Thy gold was found by men most grave and sage Among the sands of a strange river. How my breast pants ! How my sides quiver ! Surely the breath of God is…