BETELGUESE
_A TRIP THROUGH HELL_
By JEAN LOUIS De ESQUE
_Author of "The Flight of a Soul", etc._
JERSEY CITY
CONNOISSEUR'S PRESS
1908
Copyright, 1907 and 1908, by
_Jean Louis de Esque_
_Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, E. C._
_All Rights Reserved_
TO
Those that felt the wand of Muse--
Queen Posy's shaft of subtle art--
Seared to the distant heights of blue,
Past onyx lees that Sunsets dyed,
And put to Vellum Couplets' fuse,
Sped same to Fate with timid heart,
Then shed dim tears in Sorrow's pew,
This work's respectfully inscribed.
PREFACE
To the readers of this poem an apology is needed for affixing thereto a
praem. Some friends of mine have been plaguing me beyond the restrictive
line of Patience for the true cause of conceiving the accompanying
collection of words, balderdash or what you will, some even asseverating
with the eruditeness of an Aristole that it was a nebulous idea, an
embryonic form of thought hibernating within the cavities of my sinciput's
inner apex, the remnants of that wild phantasmagoric dream of "vicious,
vulpine labyrinths of hell," partly expounded in my "The Flight of a
Soul."
Now to satisfy everybody but my friends I throw my prejudices to the winds
and confess, to wit: That I, with the buckler of Will, wooed Oblivion on
September the sixth at exactly 5 P.M., having been up at my desk mauling
and drubbing the English language with a vengeance for thirty-six
consecutive hours, and that I awoke at 12.30 A.M. that selfsame night with
the entire contents of the accompanying----? (have as yet not decided in
what category the critics will consign this weird hypotyposis of the
Supernal) jingling through my tired brain. I set to work at exactly 12.45
A.M. and wrote until our esteemed companions of the nocturnal hours ceased
their unloved music (mosquitos), 5.05 A.M., hied myself back to bed and
hypothecated as many winks as Dame Slumber saw fit to allot to me, who am
at continued war with her silent wand. The same tactics were employed
during the succeeding fifteen nights, wherein I penned eight thousand one
hundred and sixteen (8116) lines. This is the truth, the whole and
integral truth, and nothing but the unexpurgated truth, so help me Muse
(she's blind as a bat) and Satan, of whom I've writ in such an unbecoming
manner that, henceforth, I must perforce seek my future Elysian in other
haunts than those of the above named Cosmopoietic's own, for fear that his
uncoped wrath may blast me into an ape-faced minstrel or, like one
red-haired varlet draped with the cognomen of "Nero," use my unbleached
bones for illuminating the highway to his insidiate lair.
To the readers this question may present itself, to wit: Why place Hell in
the bowels of Betelguese? Why not the sun or moon?
In the first instance the former sphere is eliminated as a possibility on
account of its nature. Being a huge nucleous mass of aëriform fluid,
nothing containing animal or vegetable life could possibly exist either
on or within its bowels. The moon, too, is excluded for the same reason as
is our earth, it having at one time been a part of the latter, broken off
by one of the giant planets long before the pleioncene era. Betelguese
being a celestial pariah, an outcast, the largest of all known comets or
outlawed suns in the universe; and, further, so long as Hell has not been
definitely placed, why not figure this hybrid planet as a possibility?
Astronomers throughout the world remember the colossal outburst in the
constellation Perseus that occurred on February 20, 1901, when one sun
exploded, or two made collision with appalling force. It was observed
through telescopes and could be seen with the naked eye in full daylight.
Both suns were destroyed as suns--that is, they were turned into thin gas
and vanished from sight of the largest telescope within less than a year.
Had each sun been the centre of a system of eight worlds like our sun; and
imagine each world, sixteen in all, to be inhabited with human beings;
then they all perished in a short time after collision and died of what
the astronomers call "fervent heat."
Vega, far more larger than our sun, appears stationary. Our sun, with its
family of moons and comets, is moving toward it at the fearful pace of
fourteen miles per second. At its present rate of speed--and if Vega is
really a "fixed" planet--then our sun would reach it in 320,000 years.
However, it is a known certainty that the quantity of matter that is
invisible is so much greater than the visible that the visible may be
ignored. There may, too, be hundreds of millions of dark bodies, extinct
constellations far larger than our own sun. Any one of these could
approach our solar system and annihilate it with its impact for, in
passing the orbit of the earth on their way around the sun, they attain a
regular velocity of 26-1/2 miles per second. If one of these dark comets
should overtake the earth and strike it, the velocity of impact would be
about eight miles per second; but if it should meet the earth in a head-on
collision, the speed, when it struck, would be forty-five miles per
second, a momentum beyond the power of the brain to fathom--indeed, man
can not think of sixty miles per minute. Let a solid nucleous collide with
the earth and imagination would reel at the result.
The earth moves over 18-1/2 miles every second, and this added to or
subtracted from 26-1/2 makes 45 or 8. If a comet should strike at right
angles to the direction of the earth's motion the speed of collision would
be 26-1/2 miles. But 8, 26-1/2 or even 15 would hurl destruction if large
enough.
A visible change is taking place in the giant sun Betelguese. Its nebulæ
is slowly but surely disappearing. One hundred years hence it may be a
dark planet, invisible to even the most powerful telescope. However, Hell
will reign on, through eons and eons; and, if this sun, or any other,
contains its kingdom, and mankind lives for another thousand years or
more, those who should be so unfortunate as to miss the jagged heights to
Paradise need not worry, for glozing imps will lead them to the fasthold
of Typhon's weird home. Have no fear.
September 22d, MCMVII.
WHEN I AM GONE
What good is Fame when I am dead and gone,
When in immarcescible regions
My temple rots and soul doth storm and mourn
As bones of mine adorn an early grave?
Who'll hear and know that I worked hard and long,
That twin sighs and tears storm'd me by legions,
My life, a sunless one--bleak and forlorn.
No ray of light whilst I in thralldom slave?
What good is Fame when I am dead and gone,
When in fenowed abyss', stark and cold,
I wend my solemn footsteps and atone,
Whilst Fame my brow doth crown with its renown?
Who'll know that heart and soul bled on and on,
That storm-swept aches and woes were mine untold,
My life a waste, from which there stole a moan,
No Aureole whilst I in sorrow drown?
What good is Fame when I am dead and gone,
When far and wide my praise is heard and sung,
And busts and marble-heads my deeds unfurl
To multitudes that knew me not in flesh?
Not when I'm gone care I for Renown's dawn,
Now, whilst I labour at Fame's lowest rung,
Let me reap dame Approval's brightest pearl
And sip its olpe as I my battles thresh.
BETELGUESE
Caressed by crystal dews and light
Beyond the realm of scale and fin,
Incarian Thought flits Fancy wings
To hazards where a crimson urn
Makes scarlet this eternal height
Of sunless suns and reigning sin,--
Flame-decked this plain of warring kings
Where poisoned fumes and beacons burn!
And thro' the hyoids, huge and red,
Past portals black and guidons bright
To onyx lees and opal sands,
The Cyclopean vaults of dwale,
And cavern'd shapes that Typhon bled,
Greet each wand'ring spectre's sight;
Where pixies dance on wind-blown strands,
Lurke gyte incubi in a hall.
Here, then, reigns gyving, batter'd Doom!
Where shadows vague and coffined light,
Spit broths from splinter'd wracks and domes.
Where viscid mists and vulpine cries
Rise from the moat of dungeoned gloom
And rasp the stationed walls of night
Until sequesteréd skulls and bones
Are made to hear the moaning sighs
That some mad Titan, rayed in gold,
Wrests from Damnation's siffling tomb.
And labyrinths of Horror's Home,
'Mid vapours green and aisles unsunned,
Provoke each cursing mattoid's fold
Until the night is changed to noon
By cowled magicians on a dome.
Then wizardry, strange, unsummed,
Reveals each varlet, Figgum's might:
A hemless rabble from the South
That some wild Trojan flayed and curs'd,
Skirr thro' the Cauldron's broken lane
And wing for implex strands and light.
There, where tapers flare on Hell's mouth
This clan damns each giant Soldan first.
And Medeas in this vast plain,
Who blink at yon dysodile lamps,
Slap thenars and each bifurcous
As javels drink from scyphus' bright.
Blood-curdling monsters on a rope
That sate upon the damn'd one's camps
As hell-winds gleam most glorious--
Each Vandal's music day or night!
Vain! vain! Each isle of hidden Hope!
Alas! Alas! Each olpe of Remorse!
Each vaulted soul and spiral thought,
Swirl in the throes of waters cold;
Where rivers with the venom crawls,
Croak bat-faced incubi till hoarse.
And succubi that Hecate taught,
Bedecked in byss and spangled gold,
Sing runes unto the dungeoned halls.
Then burning ghauts and crimsoned peaks,
Vomit each, green, abhorrent clouds;
The Temple's drum sounds tomb and death
To those that came for unsung trust,
And pyres that smoulderéd for three weeks.
Spit wenches' blood thro' addling crowds
And filch each leering vyper's breath,--
Vile japes that dam all struck with dust!
Erelong unholy fugitives roam
'Mid imbosk caves and moaning dales
To piercing screes of purple gloom,
Where gurgling sighs and rasping moans,--
Each bloody vampyre's home of loam
As life-tides drip to scarlet vales,--
Unshadowed haunts of darkling Doom!
Add terror to the rasping groans
That roaring surfs of rubic blood
Fling to each afrite's acrid crypt.
And mildewed skulls and ashen bones
That lie before each pillaréd mount,
Speak tidings of a leprous flood.
And where giants' carcants flare and sit,
The battle-crests and surging foams
That toss each swoll'n Cauldron's Count
As pyramidal realms unsunned
Glare at the stricken, tamper'd souls,
Stark wenches seek blind seers of lust
And curse each monster's hairless head.
Where fungus-fagots gleam unstunned
As witches dig unfathomed holes
And bury Helms in powderéd dust,
Sleep mourners of the newly dead
Until rayed Aureoles bright, flare,
And sparkle like Asian stars.
Hyperaspists of templéd night,
And yawning caverns cold and bleak,
Forsake the crown of addling Care;
Whilst afrites in bright jeweled cars,
Lured by the phosphorescent light,
Scale an immarcescible peak.
When giant uncus' of the damn'd
Shake Palsy's wand of brooding Fear,
And Hecate spins her daughters round
The whirling halls of spastic gloom;
When afreets prance on blister'd sand
As blood-shot jazels deck each peer,
Each empire froths a raving hound
That storms each zone of purple doom.
And scarlet foam and hiss of oils,--
Abhorrent signs of yawning hell!
'Mid roaring winds and echoes loud
As beaches ring with Torture's hold,
Dim shapes writhe in a cauldron's coils
While canceréd ghouls sound Circe's bell;
Where hideous screes stem the crowd,
Faffling gawks gleam like burnished gold.
A gangrel imp that Satan flayed,
Shrieks deeds of sin that man-wrecks wrought
Ere gyving Death each culprit smote;
Where straggling moonbeams cleft a dome,
A Prince in splendor stands arrayed
And rants his spleen unto a ghaut,
Where mongrel whelps their sorrows wrote
In channels with a harlot's bone.
A kingdom vast with jasper light
Greet jejune souls within this shoal,
Where witches lure each helot's eye,
Each gyving hoodlum, seer and sage.
In blazing tankards gleams a sight
As o'er their heads giant rocks roll,
Of skinless nudes that gasp and die
As poisoned lizards vent their rage.
Then, vile squats blast the eerie air!
Glozing gnomes of pond'rous built,
Peer at plagues that goddard's hold;
Writhe vermin in each ghoul-king's olpe,--
Blind death within a secret lair!
A varlet who his wine hath spilt
As Scorpions smote him treblefold,
Is thrown into a stagnant sea
By Lordly Helm of bad repute,
Whose visage, curl'd in ughly mien,
Vext at each leper's font of spleen,
Invokes a hairless witch to scan
The shambling hordes that boon refute,
Who lifts her unguis, long and lean,
To curse each vyper's bloody dream,
Each mongrel and forsaken man.
Then quivers that cippus' hurl'd
As templéd vaults are splinter'd wide;
And fearful fancies cleave the night
When reeking gores pierce hollows black,
Smite vandals that in sleep are curl'd:
And naiads that the vapours hide
In shadows vague--Unholy light!
(Spectres to each soul on a wrack)
Dank caverns of each vaulted soul
With spiral thoughts of feveréd haste,
'Mid the throb of murderous life
In haunted zones of vandals gyte,
Squirm at the pulse of this blind shoal
Where blood-veinéd dreams and acrid waste
Cut thro' the senses like a knife
And bid Icarian Thought to sit
Below a bleak, untower'd home,
Where fagots that the skelp hath stunned--
Plunderers of unfathomed night!
Glare thro' black shadows vague with forms
Convulsed with cries that pierce each dome
As impeached gumps seek plains unsunned,
(Satellites to mounted Light!)
Teem in the wind-strewn crest of thorns
A phantom that a charnel urn
Spewed from its lap and canceréd fold,--
Trophies of grim Destiny's crypt!
A burning pyre, whose deadly breath
Stir sighs of men as cesspools burn
A harlot strewn with virgin gold
That some malignant, stol'n script,
Condemn'd to witches' fateful death,
Spells reigning doom to one and all.
Where jarbling gumps ride hydras green,
And utter sharp, a curdling curse,
And wingless zimbs that storm each dell,
Glare at each shatter'd dome and wall
That speak of prowling apes in dream,
Of dragons drawing Horror's hearse
When bloody lanes of soulless hell
Bathed monstrous this eternal land.
When Soldans clasp dank Vellum old,
And carcants shine like scarlet foam,
With hiss of snakes and burning oils
As dirges sway both imps and damn'd,
A beacon's light that cleft Doom's fold,
Peers at the Cyclopean home
Of furnace-heat and writhing coils
Of immewed depths as cyphers red
Proclaim each gyving monster's deed.
And woful runes rake this giant gloom,
Phantastic coals lurk in the dust,
Blind whelps lie in an onyx bed
And ponder words as thumb-screws bleed
(Unto the music of king Doom)
Each gangrel villains heart of lust.
Beyond the halls of numberéd dead
Where lambent lights and crystal dews
Invoke the ghouls to guard each tomb
That vandals of the sobbing night,
When hell-winds stir the conquered dead,
And thunder shook the mourner's pews,
Giant cavalcades of marshalléd Doom
March thro' the phosphorescent light
Unto the headland of the West,
Where pageantries of warriors bold
Scyle crafty sins and purple lusts
Until the peaks and portals bright,
Where buried kings are tombed at rest,
Sweat odours dank with Torpor's cold;
Infernal pæons shake the busts
Of idols planted in the light.
And, ere immewed gyres froth black mists
Unto all ghauts and splinter'd domes
That cypher signs of dungeoned dell,
A turgid dawn arrays this vale,
Each dysodile scavenger sits
On a tomb and fondles gray bones;
An eyeless toad croaks from a well.
Then cosmic force forsakes each dale:
'Mis Cyclopean pulse of hell
Giant cauldrons vomit vapours green
And skirr thro' bristling lanes and halls:
Whilst beacons die and shrood each soul,
Dank tears drop on a fatal bell,
Wrought by a Titan's sombre queen,
Where graven vypers soop the walls
With blood from maidens scourged as toll.
Sentinel silence then holds gloom!
Vile squats curse roaring pools inflame,
A swarthy gump leers at the damn'd,
A sultry storm invades each realm.
Reared in incondite depths of doom
As shadows spell each sinner's name,
A Necromancer mounts a stand
That storms and sleet struck with their helm,
And smites the weird elements.
A cesspool stunn'd with offal's stench,
And ulexite--Each mattoid's curse!
Set in twin ridges black and red,
Obtest the foam-sprayed battlements
To count the blood-drops on a bench
That the coals of Tartarus nurse--
Disastrous, imbosked Torture's bed!
Make viscous this grim philster's hold.
Saffron Teocalli in the West,
Whose spiréd domes hold priceless stones,
And censers' fumes lull sighs and moans
As barriers dank, flee their fold,
Betrayed by crystals on a crest
That ride this kingdom's batter'd gnomes,
A fitful syrinx stills all groans
As chasms roar with devils' glee.
Then fancies greet each goblin's eye,
Each donga's depth and mount unsunned:
A quire's rune, in onyx dress,
And black-linkt harps with eyes that see
Each blood-set jazel in a sky,
Where heights eternal reign unstunned,
Pierce sylvan airs that wizards bless.
Come from sequesteréd shoals of hell
Blithe pixies and lithe naiads fair
That revel till the ev'ning skies
Grow lustrous as Arcadian noon.
Then witches in an implex dell,
With stranggling robes and burnished hair,
Flee thro' Autumnal shades and dyes,
While quickly from the sandaléd gloom,
That struggles at the pillaréd light,
Provoked by turbid drops of blood,
She gleams upon a tower'd home
That gyving hands, of crafty imps,
Reared for the Vandals of the night,
Where seething pores froth devils' flood,
And dusky shales leak scarlet foam,
Or lightly lifts her feet and skimps
Unto a rubic, boweréd vale,
To list unto a clanging bell
That spells these signs to startléd wrecks,--
Titan's satellites, Hell and Circe!
The end of her who sought a dale
Below a weird, dungeoned well,
That coffins sunken battle-decks
And a phantasmagoric hearse.
To muse in gorce's dank and bleak
'Mid shatter'd mounts that devil's split!
To mourn in plasmic Temple's fold
With gyving sod no King can shirk!
A spangléd pomp of Death's gray peak
Where owls and lizards blink and sit
As curdling cries of monsters cold
Pierce hollows deep until they irk,
Each surf-thrown afrite's eclipsed dome.
And cursing clans that felt the heat
That dwale obscured in shadows vague,
Clash thro' the broken forest boughs
Until each ronyon's stuck in loam.
There, then, bivouacs a unco Cheat,
Whose limbs were struck with pains of ague,
Who lifts his sightless eyes and sows
The seeds of Thaumaturgist's arts.
Then shakes his fist above all necks
(Whenas the dirges pierce the gloom)
And sheds his addling tears of woe.
Perturbéd at sights of flashing darts
That dragons hurl amongst soul-wrecks,
He smites a staff upon a tomb
Where phosphorescent torches glow,
And mouths his words at earless owls,
Past ribboned dusk and pillaréd woe,
Where sonless maids their sorrows heal,
And mixes purple mists with light,
Both moaning airs and cringing howls,
The swirling skelp that heavens show,
And changes this vast plane of weal,
This kingdom's tomb of rasping night
To elfin cheer as dances bloom,
And speeds his flight from Terror's urn,
Past jasper lanes where moonstones glow,
And turns his eyes at writhing Hell,
Upon the spectral haunts of Doom,
Where fiends in hissing Cesspoles burn
'Mid howls of pain from vassals flow
That rake each skull-blown vale and dell.
Where syrt sucks jargling javels mad,
And carcants cast a luring light
From mildewed screes and mounts that scyle
Veiled augueries of battling Hell,
A charnel shard assails the damn'd
Thro' vapours green and siffling night;
Monastic caverns rasp each isle;
A poisoned skink croaks from a well.
And mournful wraiths sob hard and loud,
A smotheréd sigh proclaims more woe,
The lounging imps grasp tomes of old
And rant therefrom each damn'd one's name.
And horrors, snarling at each crowd,
Assail each kingdom with its show:
A noctivagous dragon bold,
Hastes thro' the aisles of death and shame
And haunts the cajons of the dead,
There fungus-tapers gleam like gold
Before a ghoul-king's jeweled throne:
There, too, upon a Temple's arch,
Bivouacs a witch who scans the bed
Of buried kings and queens struck cold
And lifts her voice to splinter'd dome
To stem the brooding Djinnee march,
And with the dusk that meteors split,
She tries the figgum of her lust,
And throws her voice at portals dark,
Past burning pyres, where moaning airs
Call the help of Conjury's script;
And, ere cyphers burn in the dust
The names of new souls in this ark,
The ghosts of the dead prance in pairs.
This is the sphere of Dust and Tomb!
Where Trojans struck with palsied Death
As Satan smote each cavern's fold,
And whistling heat swirl'd Circe around
The coffined slabs of Aeæa's womb,
When kingdoms fought with rasping breath
As stellar domes grew black and cold,
Auric oriflammes storm'd the mount
As bristling lances smote giant hordes;
Then gorey devils fought with lust
As vulpine cries smote each jinn's ear,
Black Dragons swore beneath their breath
And murdered all rebellious Lords;
Strong hands that knew each axe's trust,
Escutcheons that all princes fear,
Hurl'd swift destruction and black death.
Where Titans storm'd a Monarch's throne,
There sleeps a Ruler carved in stone;
Where vultures guard a serpent's home,
A quarteréd warrior tells its tale.
Perturbéd at dews that drip from dome
As wattling apes their horrors groan,
The witch forsakes each glozing gnome,
Affrighted at this gurgling vale.
On crimson mounts where hydras peer--
Affronting devils in the gloom!
Unsypheréd regions wrapped in light
That hide dank vapours of each tomb,
Lurk throaty imps throughout the year
Who sing their runes as lepers soom;
Red-embered gnomes within this night
Where scarlet dyes bathe Torture's womb!
And Djinnee gasps add to the sight
That dragon-worms bred in this surge,
Build temples for queen Sorrow's home;
And pageantries of Typhon's bloom--
Immarcescible sklayres of night!
And shadows bleak, that sins do purge--
A show for Satan on this throne!
Invoke the Cauldron's spraying gloom
To newer deeds of hell-lashed lust;
Tho' dusky wizards rake the skies
(Eternal hounds that all beguile)
Unstable dreams lure Fancy fane
Below this star's unfathomed dust,
Where shatter'd domes list to the sighs
Of skinless wenches on an isle,
Where nymphs call her Christian name.
Where purple mists like poppies bloom--
Dank dulse within green rivers cold!
A flayed and sobbing maid doth lie;
Eternal curse of bedlam night
Speak of sepulchral haunts of Doom;
Unnumberéd skulls their woes have told
To studded domes and opaque sky
Beneath the Arching vales of light.
Alight with fires red and green
That show the coffers of each tomb,
Jarbling vandals rake the night-coals,
Shales and husks; and, ere reigning night
Provokes each harlot's fitful dream
To cleave the casements of king Doom
And reach the swoll'n, acrid shoals,
Where stationed Mounts are penciled white
That mark the maw of raging hell,
Till, eyes awake stare at each flame
Unsung and, on boulders that burn,
Peer at two lordly squats in dust
As wenches drink from poisoned well,
'Mid purple sins and naked shame
In Typhon's olpe and churning urn
Of stranded devils, souls and lust.
When earthly homes are tombed in dust,
And Life forsakes geotic shoals;
When midst the tombs of penetence,
When coffins damp, and slimmy clay,
Each Lordly Helm is tossed in trust
To spiral vaults from plasmic holes,
Convolving cyclones spin him hence
As agate torches light his way.
Unmutteréd sighs teem in the air
As structural stars pass him by,
And twisting clouds shape eerie forms
Until he reaches Satan's home.
Unholy visions curse and swear,
Gyte vypers lull each demon's sigh,
Giant Dragons whom no Remorse storms,
Shake fists at opals in a dome.
And Cesspools vext with odours strong
From stifling shard and putrid dung,
'Mid caverns large and Cauldrons deep,
Vile squats in teeming pewter burn;
And shrieking vypers wield a prong
Above a monster, quarter'd hung.
The Tasmanian Devils keep
The sod turn'd in a gyre's urn
That no lost soul can undulate:
Hence seers and sages, tossed in sin,
Rant rubics to each reigning king,
Each glowing pyre is fed with oil
By afreets reared on bottled hate;
Infernal tapers light this Inn
As poisoned vapours to us cling;
Re-embered beacons on this soil
Flare spastic shadows to each tomb.
In vain we sigh for fleeing grace
Within the pale of turbid dyes!
In vain we look for hope, sweet rest,
Within this crypt of whistling Doom!
When in monastic nights of haze
The battlements retard giant sighs;
When marshalléd mists from out the West
Cloak ramparts black with ughly light,
A rubic Soldan rakes each ghaut,
Each sleeping vandal, imp and soul.
No astral eyes laugh from these skies,
No nightingales sing in the night;
A dungeoned curse that villains wrought
Rasp each eternal vault and shoal.
Then one-eyed mongrels split the dyes
Of roaring winds and raging storms,
Dim shapes flee to the haunts of gore,--
Each Cyclopean Dragon's goal!
And groaning cries from maidens fair
Is heard by spectral, gangrel forms,--
The writhing thin is flayed some more!
Its secret sins,--Black deeds of Soul--
Is scourged as copper-burnished hair
Hangs from her alabaster head,
Both feet and arms are screwed till black--
A sign that Hell reigns on, unstunned.
Then incense swung by priestesses,
Salute the newly, plunder'd dead,
The bloody sight upon the wrack,
Where cringing groans once rose unsummed,
Is cover'd by the murderess.
Where restless hawks and chainless ghouls
Blink bleary orbs at dust and stone;
And glozing night-gnomes love the sight
That geysers toss upon their crest,
Feal afrites bathe in a pool
And wash each harlot's bloody bone.
Scorpions on serai's height
Peer at each forge's raging breast,
Whilst faffling gumps and hairless seers
Stretch shanks and arms and yawn till hoarse,
And vapours green and beacons red,
Feared coming Dawn, and fled in haste;
The bulwarks that each hoodlum fears,
Sink in a cajon's livid course;
The winds and storms are silent, dead,
As barriers red bathe the waste.
What of the sight when Horrors swirl,
When oceans ring with Terror's roll?
What of the galley-decks and wrecks
That felt the force of angry Hell?
When kingdoms fought each warring Earl,
The incubi cursed each lost soul;
When vandals broke the idols' necks,
Giant battle-axes smote each dell.
And, then came there galvanic gloom!
An acrid oath and savage howl,
Hurl'd at an idol's austere ghoul
By grizzled rogue and mocking gnome,
Perturbéd as vandals shine and bloom
In robes of pearl and tazzled cowl,
Throw Hecate's spawn into a pool
Who stung them with a poisoned bone.
This wanton witch of evil fame,
Vamped with both hatred, murder, lust,
Speeds cycles of the Future's curse
And damns each goblin, skink and knave.
Then pyres and ghauts flare once again,
The halls are swept with burning dust,
Six Dragons bear the dead one's hearse
Unto the newly, opened grave.
Ere the quaking Dawn shakes its crown
To tower'd peaks and hyoids red
That hide blind fathoms of this sea,
An opal light arrays each plain;
Each naiad rumps on velvet down;
A bat-shapped Buzzard makes its bed;
A red-tongued Gecko storms each lee.
Then apes and adders writhe with pain
As Cauldrons vomit oils that burn;
'Mid churning storms of stinging sleet,
Vial haunts of gore spill their quest
And murder with unholy lust,
Wilst fagots, beacons, torches, turn
Hell's Pompeian shoals to heat;
And viscid mists rise in the West--
Dank treasures of Damnation's dust!
In search of silence, sleep and rest.
When in a vale we lie and dream
Of sanded beach and laughing skies,
When Fancy lifts her wings and soars
To agate strands and ocean's breast,
A gangrel soul begins to scream
Black tokens of prevailing sighs
As furnace-ovens sweat giant pores.
And other things perturb each crypt,
Each vulture's brood and figent owls:
A belching mountain in the South
Hurls boulders thro' the fearful night:
A demon-quire rants from script,
Led by staccato raspings, howls;
A meteor vaults a Cauldron's mouth;
A sombre maid doth long for light.
Bleak wintry winds engulf us all--
Hosannah! cry the fretful mobs;
White-heated storms assail all heads--
Triumphal pæons shake the air!
Unnumberéd gawks roam thro' each hall--
Where Typhon sits, a maiden sobs!
Conscience stabs our nightly beds,
Remorse leers daily at dame Care.
A Donga, deep with squirming gnats
And acrid coils,--a hole of Death!
And runnels thick with arid dung,
Flow past a Temple's swoll'n arch,
Where warring tribes of hungry cats
Fish for green lizards filched of breath;
A palace-dome where runes are sung
As Satan views his squadron's march,
Flare twin mineral lights of blue
That lure each legion foul of home.
Swarm Trojans right and left with sword;
Skirr gloppened worriers thro' the night;
Roar puteals that toads eschew;
Hiss brown snakes to each toothless gnome,
Affrighted at the raving horde
That crash thro' leprous filth and light--
Disastrous sights of men gone mad!
And pyramidal wall of rock
Are battle-grounds for waging lust:
A clashing lance spun vypers round
The gyrus rind where helots clad
Each Thaumaturgist in a frock,
The sign of which spake added trust
Unto each ghoul-king's able hound.
Crafty Lords of militant mien,
Led vanquished to the slaughter-pen;
Thumb-screws and bastinados work
Both Devils' pomp and Soldans' joy;
And tantrums coarse in cesspools teem
As women sob for dying men:
The wracks that djinnee fear and shirk,
Are Torture's friend--A Monster's toy!
The rayless styes that guard the bones
Of fall'n kings and grizzled hordes,
The mildewed screes that hold the skulls
Of shambling spectres, wraiths, and souls,
Now waft the spiréd, rasping tones
Of risen helots, princes, lords;
And all up-rising mists from hulls
That stranded on these jejune shoals,
Evaporate when amber lights
Cleave phantom-screens and huddles black.
(For this each pixie sings for cheer)
Arcadian sights then hold sway:
Each corporal gump loves the sights--
The hidden past (an endless track)
Reviews each garneréd Greek and year,
Each warrior bold and lassie gay.
Sanious lights beyond the height,
Imbosked dysodile vaults of dwale
As ulexite flare in the rocks
Where implex aisles lead to gyte doom,
Lure illaqueate Thought to flight,
And at a Cyon, chained in stall,
Whom mad Medeas shore of locks,
Chase Fancy's wings where hazards bloom.
Here herculean dwangs of gold,
Clasped in talons of Circe's son,
Pry portals of Teocalli as,
When hyoids blaze like sea-linkt skies,
Incondite imps seek grovels cold,
Unfathomed haunts that scyle each sun,
We see above the lees green grass
Where pixies laugh with dancing eyes,--
King Wonder's sight that holds each heart!
Above the rind of Ursa's wake,
Past shadows vague and sunless suns,
Giant visions of the cancelléd past
Rise from the void and play their part.
Demeter floats around a lake;
Where waters with a naiad runs,
Hector's shot by Archilles' dart;
Where Orestes stabs his mother,
Agamemnon sleeps on in cold;
Aegisthus robs a queen of all;
Andromache sobs tears of woe.
And Clytaemenestra's lover,
Like Menelous, is strong and bold:
Aeneas on a burning wall
Carries Anchises from the show.
Then vulgar scenes stare at each soul,
Hair-raising visions greet each eye;
Priam's son is dragged round ancient Troy,
Tied fast to a chariot's tail;
Andromeda's doomed as Death's toll;
Patroclus dies with a deep sigh.
Phyrrhus sacks Troy with a devilish joy;
Hecuba's nineteen sons now wail
As Mycenae and Tiryns are burn'd:
The Scaean Gate is storm'd by Peers!
Archæans and Phrygians bold
Have fought with Hatred's biting lust.
Telemachus whom the Fates have spurn'd,
Finds Ulysses in twenty years;
Thessalian Soldans in gold,
Like Dædalus, slept on in dust
As Penlope winged for distant zones.
Then Syran airs held each ear:
Bright carvels glowed with rubic wine,
Giant cyphers flared each Lordling's name
Within the haunts of dungeoned domes,
Where jazels peer the eyes of Fear,
And owls with a scorpion dine--
Twin Monarch's play the dice's game.
When beacons urticate each eye,
Noctivagous ghouls haste to stroke
Each goblin shank of hoary sage.
Then pomp of gloom breaks into bloom,
The Temple's arch cracks as we sigh,
A clashing sound above that spoke
Blind wrath unto each Wizard's rage,
Revealed the chasm of stark Doom.
Unto the peaks and gables black,
Syrian airs like Orpheus
Lull sequesteréd afrites to sleep,
A witch smites her high biforous--
A symbol of king Typhon's wrack!
Where crystal lamps shine most glorious,
Twin legions lie in cajons bleak,--
Tokens of Hell invidious!
Then fades the burnished light on high;
Magicians stave their heads in dust,
The vermin feed on reeking bones,
Each gnome sobs to a green-horn'd toad.
And monarchs of this dungeoned sky
Untomb each son in sacred trust
As vypers sound their rasping tones,
Farewell the ancient Greek's abode!
Then spectres of the tower'd night,
(Vultures of the sun, moon and stars)
And bezzling parasites of dawn,
Haunt ichnolite of mourners cold;
Then purple sins bloom in the light
As vypers drive queens in bright cars;
Where dragons root the blistere'd lawn,
There reigns a curdling monster bold.
To scour these lanes of strobic gloom--
Infernal doom by mongrels' wrought!
To pace these aisles of whistling heat,
Eternal signs of souls gone wrong!
And when a skelp cleaves siffling doom,
And vapours scyle a greenish ghaut,
Rebellious vandals stamp their feet
As rulling Cyons wield hell's prong.
Then domes and walls sweat savage rage,
Each gangrel gnome is toss'd by fear,
The tombs provoke each inmate's keep
To curse the horrid atmosphere,
Where ghouls their battle-axes wage,
Froth devils' pomp throughout the year;
Where lizards o'er tath do creep,
Bivouacs a horney-fisted seer.
To groves of wind-swept ulmus' bear,
And siffling mists beyond a bell
That hide veiled shadows of a peak
Above the stationed domes of red,
Augueries of a marching pair,--
Twin demons of unconqueréd Hell!
Spell visions that the soffins leak
That felt the besom of the dead,
Just as the Twilight's scarlet urn
Is seen from heights unfathomed, strong.
There runnels of green waters cold,
Toss lepers from their murky breast;
There venom-oils and tapers burn
To light the way of souls gone wrong,--
Blood-stainéd each idol's crown of gold
Where battle-wrecks seek figent rest!
To the distant porphyry mount
Where agate torches shine most bright,
And syrinx's float music's charm
O'er the jargling herds of tombed,
A joggling javel begins to count,
With bleary eyes of grayish light,
The rubies on each idol's arm,
And whisper words unto the tombed.
Now to a churning gyre's pool
We haste to see a weird show,
Where Lordly Helms in vials squirm,
Each mongrel scoundrel's olpe of wine!
A Morgan gambles with a ghoul,
A Belmont writhes with sizzling woe,
A Rockefeller leads each worm,
Another's known as T. F. Ryan.
The browless whelp of oily fame
Is made to dig the burning soil,
The sheckles of a Pierpont king,
Secures no prestige in this Inn.
The gambling ghost whose middle name
Is "Fortune", spins within the swirl
Of waters cold and oceans' ring,
Condemned, forsaken for his sin.
On earth they plunder'd, robbed and stole
From month to month and year to year;
There Franchise-stealers cracked with leers
As Plebeians stung, groaned with might.
Now one and all damn'd on this shoal
Yuck addling brains and shriek with fear,
Now all shrink at Hell's laughing seers
As Remorse storms the ughly night.
Here Pat McCarrens filch no vote,
A Grady eats no mellow pea,
A Murphy owns no City Hall,
No Jeromes skew at dices' song.
On Vellum gray their sins are wrote
To murmurs of each sullen lee,
Racked with the wand of death and pall,
They blast their heads as souls gone wrong.
No presidential timber's found
Within these caverns, pools or dung;
No two-faced B's or bloated T's,
Lie to laymen, vassals, hordes.
Here politicians hear the sound
Of ballots that their hearts have wrung,
Of burning pyres and blister'd lees
That scorch these one-time kings and lords.
Here Conventions hold our eyes
As Dragons smite a gravel dome.
The kings of Finance, skinn'd and shorn,
Are list'ners in these halls of gloom.
Their deeds are read, they heave giant sighs,
Thumb-screws and wracks rake skin and bone,
In cajons bleak, each corpse forlorn,
Is sunk as trophies of king Doom.
No Depews sell their patron's love,
No faffling Platts guard treasures strong,
No Parkers, Roots,--The crafty things!
Betray a country's hope and trust.
No palm is brought them by a dove,
No minions shant their praise in song,
The poisoned zimbs add to the stings
Of conscience lost and raging lust.
Each one-time king of earthly fold
Is skinn'd alive then cooked in oil;
Some frazzled Astor dames and fools
Now eat their claws and chew a bone.
A monarch known as Leopold,
Writhes in a cavern's squeezing coil;
Here man-born helms are but the tools
Of Satan and each prowling gnome.
Their toes are screwed and eyes are bored,
Their ears are shorn and lips are split,
Each head is cracked, all tongues are cut,
By vypers red and bloody ghouls.
Affrighted as the dames are gored,
Each Sybarite his teeth doth grit,
The huddled pirates in a hut,
Shriek help unto the roaring pools.
And moaning airs their sorrows tell
That some unfathomed force hath bred.
Night-hawks rasp sins of women, men,
Who sold their honour, soul and name.
And tower'd screes that pierce giant hell
Are treasure-houses for the dead:
Each rich man writhes within a den,
Society dames proclaim their shame.
And offal, shard and putrid dung,
Is by affluent daughters born.
When in the ribboned mists above
A beacon flares and torches burn,
A Soldan from green earth is hung;
His heartless queen is cursed, forsworn,
Their souls house neither hope nor love
Within Damnation's burning urn.
Repress'd with hate and unspent rage
As charnel howls clash in each hall,
Each gyving hydra rends the air
With curses, hawps as rambling souls,
Lured by a grizzled warrior sage,
Storm moats before each bristling wall
And die as imps are bade to swear--
Infernal trophies of these shoals!
Immingled dreams their senses storm
As Westward shadows cloak each lee;
Where censers blaze they drag their limbs,
These cursed, forsaken whelps of hell!
Their ghastly sins on vellum's sworn,
Attested, sealed, they bend each knee!
Where devils rant blood-curdling hymns,
A raving wench drowns in a well.
Unto the coals of feveréd pyres
That glare like carcants red and white;
And glowing rubies in the dust
That lure each man-born skink and whelp,
The spastic cries and moaning sighs
Attest to Typhon's weird dight,--
And Satan's ichor of green lust,
Provokes the lashing heat and skelp.
Within the cathedral vaults of gloom,
The gorgeous pomp of the flayed,
In banded gold and marble flesh,
Speak of auguries to the damn'd,
Till, when censers' lights flare and bloom,
And shapes of men are laid arrayed
In gomes of steel, we tred the mesh
And grandeur of a conjured stand,
Where coral wreathes each hussy's brow,
Whose broken arms portray hell's lust,
Of whistling winzes, syrt and domes
That gleaming broths in anger wrought,
'Mid hiss of snakes and oils. So now,
When plunderéd tombs betray their trust,
And vandals screech at roving gnomes,
All raise a voice and curse each ghaut.
Beyond the ring and roll of hell--
And spiral lofts of quartz and gold--
We skirr upon the crutch of haste
And cleave the abyss, cold and bleak.
There jejune fossils lie to tell
Of pleiocene days' garneréd fold;
Gray bones that pierce this weird waste
Lie mounted on a torrid peak;
Principalities of the past,
Lie scatter'd in the mildewed dust;
Serai's built in ages gone,
Now crumble at a sound, a voice.
And Boulders that the Djinnee cast
As Vengeance swirl'd the heated dust,
Now rock as devils rasp a son,
And vampyres dance round and round.
And where a dim, unstudded dome
Leak odours strong and palsied light--
Twins of the Gloom! as some mad soul
Assails Typhon's battling walls,
A glowing fire of this home
Of deadly dews and poisoned night,
Bathes monstrous this untower'd shoal.
Convulsed with fear as aisles and halls
Roar like giant cauldrons mad for gore,
Icarian gumps and devils bold,
Assault each marshalléd mount and scree.
Then spectacles greet us again
Upon this shadowed, foreign shore:
A pond'rous dwang of virgin gold,
Is filched from altars that we see,
Just as the tomb-sweats pour like rain.
And distant ghauts where jazels burn,--
(A burning tomb where hissing oils
Drip on a flayed and bottled wench
That some abhorrent spawn of death
Filched from the wrack of Terror's urn
As stagnent breath unwinds its coils)
Spout uncoped shard unto a bench
Where sights of men-wrecks gasp for breath,
Whilst quickly from a bowelless whelp
Drop ghastly stones of scarlet hue
That brazen imps hurl thro' the air
At sobbing wraiths and furrowed souls,
Wrought by a fiend and conjured skelp
As men and women hold a pew
Within a turgid, acrid lair,--
Infernal aisles of yawning shoals!
T'ward cyphers bright and terrible,
Where Doom sits poised as Satan yawns,--
Each Vulture's home and arid shoal!
We hurl a curse and damn the hordes
That call each monster horrible.
Then craftily he moves his pawns
(Whenas a moan escapes each soul)
As bleary sons of noble lords
Sway twin censers' fumes in silence,
Until in myrtle groves we see
A blazing arch where agate eyes
Doth peer malignly from a crypt
Thro' turbid phials of violence,--
A scene of impish sorcery!
Where, in furbished chambers there lies--
As vypers write on evil script
The ghastly deeds that sinners wrought--
A glow-worm's fagot that arrays
Dim shapes of souls of men that were.
And cyphers nights of doomes to be,
Till flaring pyres and yon red ghaut--
So monstrous bright that some one prays--
And Vizy's carvel starts to stir,
Shape abhorrent signs on each lee.
Into the dusky coals we peer,
And musing at the luring flames,
We watch each isle of crystal green.
Anear the billows swirl with rage,
'Mid lashing waves that cope king Fear
To strands and sands where elfin games
Make rich each midnight's fleecy dream
That some Mad wand'ring, goblin sage,
Provoked from coffers of each brain,
Gleam in each tossing breast of foam,
Or shines from purple decks and domes
A ruddy carcant huge and large;
Or, when sea-linkt clouds, garbed in rain,
And behemoths sink to briny home,
A star that shines from foreign zones
Guide carvels old and Satan's barge
O'er blue profounds of the deep,
And gladden souls of men; yet, stunned,
Tho' trembling, to a roaring mouth,
A horn'd magician locked in death,
On whom two hectic harlots peep,
Sinks in abyssal depths unsummed,
Whilst him he fought hastes to the South,--
A hoary fiend of rasping breath!
And now we watch a maiden flee,
Past seas and ice-mounts oriflammed
With crystal diamonds red and bright,
Where Persephonê hath breathed a jem,
And frozen jazels that we see,
Alife with lusts of curst and damn'd,
Tho' windblown, thro' the moonless night,
She wanders with her anadem
On golden hair; nor doth she haste
When scarlet eyes peer thro' the snow,
But cavernéd mouths of grottoes black,
And storm-swept flight of dragons bold,
She passes as she treads the waste,
Off to the haunts of ghoullish show,
Where fires writhe and whispers track
Her wake unto the peaks of cold,
Above whose tower'd dome she sees
The tombs of father, mother, all;
Ay, now weeps she as the head-stones
Letter large, her unburied kin.
Now with her trembling arms and knees,
And back against the slimmy wall,
She vents her tears and choking moans,
A daughter cursed within this Inn.
And witches long for ease, so,
Erelong they peer at waters green
That pour in forges dank and cold,
Whence glare the eyes of Hell in lust
As Cyclops stem the pyre's glow,
'Mid haunts of sin and purple sheen
Of shales and husks of monsters told
As vultures to both scale and dust.
Then wing they for the western strands
Of boweréd vales and lulling dells,
Where silence holds the winds at bay,
And myrtles stir the sylvan air.
There tow'rs and the russet sands
Make fine the tunes of ringing bells
That echo to the skies of gray,
Where phosphorescent lanterns flare.
And twilights of the lofty aisles,
Thro' silver mists and streaks of blood,
Crucifixion looms cold and white;
Oaths of prurient blasphemy
Echo to the sequesteréd isles;
An ivory pyx that rides the flood
On which fantasms spin their light,
Curse each soul's eternal enemy.
Within a pool where writhing coils
Shape cyphers bold and gorey thought,--
Two shadowed sklayres of Doom and Set!
The foam-dreams of the newly dead
Ascend. To hazards that the oils
Eschewed, haste dryades that were taught
To dance. And, whilst all souls forget
The chasms deep and oriflammed,
The spastic lights of a green room,
Dim torches show the jeweled tombs
Wherein are hid the studded crowns
Of Eastern queens; or, when high-bred
Dames pick from Death's unbroken womb
The coral wreaths and poppy blooms,
Two priestesses in scarlet gowns
Curse loudly as the royal dead
Are strewn with palmy leaves and dyes.
And crimsons adders on the hulls,
Search for toadstools smeared with blood.
And livid lamps where vypers spoon,
As some bad harlot shrieks and cries
Her Nature's sins unto three skulls,
A shameless gnome bathes in hell's flood
The thighs he filched from a gray tomb.
Drawn by the whispers from the wind,
'Mid glories of the hollowed night,
To storm-swept vales and mounts we haste,
And, in monastic halls we see,
Above a greenish gyrus rind,
The flick'ring flames of a light,
Beneath whose subtle, shadowed waste
Squat men and women that would flee
The ghastly words from Vellum told,
Who pluck their eyes and pull their hair,--
Beneath their feet there writhes a worm!
As bludgeons smite a leering soul.
And when a wench that Satan sold
To some old seer, whose head is bare,
And oily snakes in cauldrons squirm,
All blast the sight and curse this shoal,--
Infernal land of Sin and Doom!
Eternal moans and sighs we hear;
A swarthy demon laughs with glee.
Then, thickly from a ghastly hole
The turbid dyes of blood doth bloom
From minxes bold, crouched with giant fear,
Provoke a sage who could not see,
With feelings for her impeached soul.
Low arches of a charnel house,
Above whose dome two demons sit,
That guard the lamps of fateful red,
Veiled whispers from a maiden's soul
Cleave skyward until they arrouse
A savage hound of hell with script
That holds her body's deeds. A-bed,
He peers thro' shades unto her shoal,
Then at his tome where sins are wrote
Of wifes that sold their names in lust,
Or men that worshipped naught but gold.
And, when stillness holds troubled sway,
A baneful imp that Conscience smote,
Rasps names of those bowed in the dust:
And, when thus their sins are foretold,
As kinsmen strike their beasts and pray,
A livid gasp permeates the air,
A curdling curse assails the night.
And squats, whose scarlet venom crawls
To lantern's-glow that tell the guilt
Of battling demons as they swear,
Malignly dumb below each light
That scyle the bloody walls and halls,
The life-ebb from a wench is spilt.
The phosphorescent fungus-lights
Are traitors' lamps that sorrows hide;
The foam-sprayed beaches that we see,
Are treasure-houses for the damn'd.
From year to year infernal nights
Rasp shoals a thousand furlongs wide;
In ev'ry zone, each distant lee,
Holds ghastly sights of burning sand.
The headlands that we reach by day,
About whose shore the dragons roam;
And mildewed vaults of gatheréd bone,
Where eyeless skulls and ape-shanks lie
As moaning winds reel to and sway
From gorey pools and tower'd dome,
A goggling wraith and shambling gnome
Doth forage for each fleeing sigh.
Now Sorrow that the Dooms crown'd King,
Flees from the mouth of pools inflame,
Whilst Lords in robes of scarlet hue,
Add to the damn'd, malignant show;
Pellicles that all eyes did sting
In Vengeance's law that none could tame,
Flees whence two lights of dreaming blue
Cleave dome-thrown shadows dress'd in woe.