Raps skulls from which a venom pours,
And shakes his fists where opals burn,
Whence figgum that his hands control
Is charged with life; and on the sand
Two witches sate their thirst in gores,
Flit Fancy's wings unto a urn,
(Within whose tomb there writhes a soul)
And with Courage that Dawn hath bred
In rivers, to whispers of the night,
As wracks are dyed a crimson red,
Feasts upon Doom's abhorrent shape,
That fires bright, toss to each bed,
And flees to realms where shadows light;
Whilst Thought, in horror of the dead,
Wings in mourning veils, dark as crepe,
And feasts on afterglow of Trust,
On cauldrons tossed to crafty Death
That froths dank pomp and guidons bright,
Unto a height, where falt'ring eyes,
Betrayed by crystals numb in dust,
Gasps at the sight with startled breath
As vapours green, war with the light,
Faint as the sunset's golden dyes.
All mounts of bone are tombs of weal,
Each scree, a temple of king Doom;
And runnels that the suns do shun,
Are pools where offal reeks most strong
And thro' the air giant wasps do reel;
On barriers bleak, reptiles soom;
A Vulture that no shard can stun
Gawks at the multitudes gone wrong.
Where waters with the venom crawls
To oriels, where banners float
Beside a dome-thrown surf of blood
T'ward letters large, that Hell hath wrought,
Worm-like vapours skirr thro' the halls
And reach a distant, lurid moat,
Where sighs and groans upon a flood
Ascend to heights of a grey ghaut--
Satellites to Destiny's crypt!
And Vespers that the Twilight brought--
More dooms that prayers nor sighs can break--
Leer at each thought to Fancy's flight;
And to the dais whereunder sit
A demon-quire that Circe taught,
Songs that echo to the isles in lake
And valley deep, ravage the night
Until Idols pall at the scene.
And stationed Mounts toward the West
Whose bones portray a ghastly lust;
And skulls that glare at the soulless night,
Point, weeping, where the foam-waves dream:
All battle-wrecks and imps haste forth
Unto the phosphorescent dust
And pyramidal shoals of light.
The poisons that the geysers spit
To apes, where Sin in splendor reigns;
And cavern'd shapes that shadows hide
Behind tapers, where snarling Doom
Glares at Set's tomb, where devils sit,
Make vague signs to the weird flames,
Flit spastic breath to regions wide
And shrood each shrunken soul with gloom.
Where glozing parasites hold sway,
Seck rivers dry reveal the bones
Of ages that the Cyclops slew:
Onyx thrones that the Titans storm'd
Lie in obfuscating decay;
Eyeless skulls that abhorrent gnomes
Wield in hands that reek with the dew
That solemn Death in tombs hath worm'd,
Stare at the scene as willows sigh:
And tapers of the Mount's crown'd witch
(Whenas each carcant fades from view)
Seek shadows that the tombs have cast
Upon the conjured, wind blown sky,
Where Syrian altar-lamps make rich
The palace-domes whereon the dew
Sits like a star and beams upon the vast,
Phantasmagoric glory of Death,
Of godly helms housed in a crypt.
And where a livid beacon flares--
(A rock that some giant storm hath split)
In mourning robes and rasping breath,
Before a grave where devils sit,
A Queen at whom a lizard stares,
Sobs her grief and woe that tears writ
Deep into the phorphyry mount:
This, then, is Death's home, vale and Tomb!
Where Lancers, made equal with the dust
When revolt storm'd each kingdom's fold,
And clashing wars spun Hecate round
The pungent halls of spastic Doom;
When in each Nation fought king Lust
As siffling vapours gleamed like gold,
Ten legions whom the gods forsook
Wrought havoc on this Cauldron's shore:
Then Dragon-guidons led the march
As battle-axes smote vile Lords;
Stout hears that with king Vengeance shook,
Fought with valour's shield for more gore;
Assaults that rasped each Temple's arch,
Spake conquest o'er shambling hordes.
This tale on ghastly Vellum's writ,
More sypher'd woes the walls proclaim;
Where goblins fondle crumbling bones,
There lies a death-thrown monster cold.
Perturbéd at writings on yon script
As moaning airs gaunt Sorrows name,
Each ape attests in faffling tones--
Flight to the Dragons' haunted fold.
Affrighted at this fearful gaze
As coals blaze like twinkling jewels,
Night-hawks that croak at bat-faced owls
Gledge at each gnome that digged a bone
From some bleak pool, and pierce the haze
Where censers blaze. Unconqueréd ghouls
Who laugh and leer at demon howls,
Make signs unto the hell-lashed foam--
Japes that the damn'd fear in each knell!
Where jargling javels stab a toad,
And mutter swift, as vypers swear;
And spectres that the cauldrons wrought,
Glare at the storm-swept sins that tell
Of monsters that the night-winds rode
When bloody plumes stole to a lair
Beyond the confines of a ghaut.
And spacious halls where vagrants lie--
Vandals to the Dawn, Night and Dusk!
And vulpine labyrinths of hell
Where pirates of a star are thron'd
As dews cloak bones that pierce the sky,
Wowed witches with a gorce's lust
When vales list to a clanging bell
That some encharnel'd hybrid domed,
Sweats cesspools with the pall of fear,
Shrill sounds permeate the barren air,
Each shatter'd light before a well,
Ends its flame in short, spastic gasps.
And stars that burn but once a year,
(Veinéd Aureoles to altars where,
When sins are told unto each knell
As chanting runes are hushed with clasps
Of winds provoked by black-set night,
Peer at the caravans in prayer;
A dirge is sung by magicians;
Each Idol squints eyes at the show,
Whilst goblins curse the eerie sight.
And Betelguese, an evil lair
With infernal, warring legions,
Careens as stars shed tears of woe.
Arcadia, its pleasing name,
An Eden where the damn'd drink wine,
Where rich fêtes greet each varlet's eye,
Each gyving hound whom Fates have doomed:
Each scyphus veils a burning flame;
A blood-stone from each dome doth shine
On poisons that in goblets lie,
Bred by sorcerers, cursed and tombed.
Then Terrors, Horrors, reign supreme!
Each vial squat before the spread,
Leer at toads in goblets crossed,
Froth skinks within each feaster's glass,
Wine changed to blood, then acrid green.
A drunken villain who was bled
As drink his convulsed entrails tossed,
Writhes with the cramps upon the grass
And glares at the face of his god,
Whose wrinkled skin, in ghastly wrath,
Provoked at this son in revolt,
Rants his spleen to the slabs of Doom,
From whence gyte monsters with a rod,
That oft gave imps a bloody bath,
Hythe, and before their master halt;
And, then came unhung, battling gloom!
The dome cracked like a clashing star,
All lights were muffled in a shroud,
Wild winds that cought us in their fold,
Dashed wrecks unto a reeking zone.
In Thralldom's grasp we waged giant war,
The storms rasped at each cursing crowd,
From regions far there sprung a cold
That froze each hoodlum stuck in loam.
There, garbed in the wastes of a moat,
Gangrel witches scan the slime to curse
Beneath a dome and shatter'd light,
A sign that all are lost and doomed.
Toward jagged heights black oaths float,
To skies of jasper light, adverse
To Doom's rich fold, prayers reach thro' night
That some malignant monster tombed
In phantom-blankets stark and bold.
All mountain-chasms growl and roar;
Each ocean froths black waves of lust;
King Thunder rasps the trembling night;
Giant lightnings split their fevered hold;
Encharneled guilt hastes to this shore
As hydras squirm along the dust,
Affrighted at this Cauldron's sight.
For we are unsubstantial wrecks
Beyond the pale of scale and fin;
Adventurers tossed by king Time
In region 'neath supernal skies.
To dungeoned knells where venom specks
The robes of priestesses with sin,
And prowling apes get drunk with wine,
We turn each thought to coral eyes
That seas have blurred with coffined night,
And whisper deeds wrought in silence.
A quiver that the tomb-sweat bore
When walls were split with Typhon's ire;
And monstrous shapes that carved the light
As dragon-worms brought pestilence
To souls who grovel on this shore,
Proclaim each gyving djinnee sire.
And dryades whom the mists have struck
With ague--A Sceptre of Despair!
(Sklayres to the night, and suns unstunned)
Dank dulse, where templed vaults of man,
Coarse-grained, who gambled with king Luck,
'Mid pulse of life below the air,
Shake at the throb of this unsummed
Sphere, where haunted thoughts and dreams scan
Athward at a untower'd home,
Where vitals that the glow-worm lit--
Friends to the Doom! as sorrowed soul,
Repress'd with rage, knelt down and prayed,
Rise from the hollowed void a moan
As sins upon papyrus, writ
In vyper's blood--Jems in this shoal!
Confess'd by men whom friends have flayed,
Teem in the wind-swept, shatter'd strands--
Blind batter'd keels that know no rest
'Mid surge of moans that tombs have spilt.
Upon the air that Doom hath wrung,
Beyond the fields where numberless hands
Point to the headland of the West,
Lights and vague shadows spell no guilt
Unto the wraiths whom Torpor stung.
And all night-thoughts in this strange sphere,
Tred in the skirts of waters cold,
Of hell-winds that the beaches swirl
Dome-high within this shrunken realm;
And crested billows toss giant Fear
Unto each culprit's hidden fold:
The studded roof where flares a pearl,
The charnel vapours o'erwhelm.
In caverns where gyte jinnee lee--
Noctivagous lepers in the gloom--
Unhollowed regions wrapped in light
Where groans are drowned by revels coarse,
(Seen by a gump throughout the year
Above the strife where horrors soom)
Lurk crafty gnomes who with the night
Rant oaths in voices cracked and hoarse:
Blood-thirsty jinn in essling caves,
Where rubic dyes tinge Torture's dome,
And vypers' whispers pierce the night
As ghouls--whose baneful eyes conspire
With the surge of hell's roaring waves--
Rear mounts of bone--Dame Sorrow's home!
As charnel scarn parades in light--
Unfathomed crafts rayed in wowed attire.
And dusky mists peer at the show,
Obtest the gloom to further deeds
Of haste, to Horror's added might;
Tho' twilight-witches spill their gloom,
(Betelguese's priestesses of woe)
Abhorrent gawks lure in the reeds
Where shatter'd lights wing sudden flight,
'Mid spun-waves kiss'd by poppy bloom.
Dank dulse, and rushing waters cold;
Eternal signs of shadowed night
Beyond the zephyr-haunted space
Of adequate lees 'neath the sky:
Unfathomed haunts of stark souls bold
That squat on waves of darkest dight,
Malignly mute as foam-waves race
To pyres where men in torture lie.
When thrones are levelled to the dust,
And glories fade in cauldrons tossed,
'Mid waters vaster than the night
In scarlet tombs that rasp grim Death,
Supernal selves, loosed from king Lust
As Dissolution bulwarks crossed,
Conviction of an undreamt might
Assail each mongrel afrite's breath.
Hushed gasps permeate the solemn air
As coral Twilight flaunts its sheen,
And vapours wreath phantastic forms
Till vaulted domes glow like the noon.
Vague dreams plague souls beyond repair,
Phantoms, black demons call their queen,
Skinks and owls whom no conscience storms
Make faces at the leprous moon.
And bleak dungeons dank with odours
Strong, within each encrusted gyre,
'Mid treasure-vaults digged by gray Age,
Affronting witches incense burn;
And howling ghouls gape thro' vapours,
Two siffling vampyres dance on fire,
Each mottled sage a conqueréd page
To him whose hate no Doom can turn,
No bat-faced gnome can stem the blaze:
Hence harlots, ghastly with giant sin,
Chant runes to him in strobic gloom
As figgum's plied before his throne.
Malignly mute, he peers thro' haze;
Infernal pæons shake each Inn,
Blue lights 'twixt opals burn and bloom
In deep-hued haunts of Typhon's home.
In vain we seek an isle of peace
Beyond the pale of siffling Doom!
'Mid stillness vaster than the tomb,
Made equal with the ghouls who lurk
On battlements where witches ease
Their minds as rubic censers fume,
A Fiend bubbles in ruddy bloom
As turgid dyes the night-dwales shirk.
No sunsets crimson this stainéd sea,
No Ev'ntides her plume unfolds;
An opaque light that Silence wrought.
Careens thro' space in quest of toll.
Then demons storm each sea and lee,
Abhorrent sights each Cauldron holds,
Dim shapes flit to the distant ghaut
Where Doom sits poised--Each monster's goal!
Erelong the air shakes with a roar--
Forebodings of souls on Death's dome!
Bright cyphers spell the new-damnéd name
In letters 'gainst a leprous home:
Oaths peel like the hammer of Thor--
The screaming thing is flayed to bone!
Its sins--an outraged Body's shame--
Laid bare as whipcords dye the foam,
Whereon nepheloid imps and night,
Soom on with tidings of a moan,
Of dews, and whisper'd groans and sighs.
And, as vague forms writhe in despair,
A native in phantastic dight
Stills Torture's hold in weazened tone,
Black incense lifts its wand and flies
To haunts where mattoids rave and swear.
Where figent gawks sken at a gnome,
Decked in byssin and beads of gold;
And glozing jinn on a scree's height,
That leer as geysers boil and flow,
Feazing imps on serai's dome,
Drink from olpes icy philters cold,
Whilst scarn assails the morning light--
And gumps haste to the Dawn's first show.
Then pyres don mystic sklayres agleam,
A faffling fool leads gawks thro' hall
Where fays, in stones of ancient art,
Dance as Scorpions shake with glee:
Infernal pomps spread tawny sheen,
Strange figgum, amid unholy pall,
Pierce Sorrows with its poisoned dart
Whence horrors shake their limbs and flee.
And scenes, profound in Aspect's hue,
Play havoc with eyes of each soul:
Crimson dales (vague tho' they be)
And swards rise from the lurid moat;
Knees bend in Adoration's pew,
Blithe songs of cheer, far and near, roll
Thro' the halls to ebony sea,
Above whose breast twin whispers float--
Tremendous signs of dooms to be!
And, ere falt'ring noon wings itself
To shadow peaks and portals bright
That scyle veiled augueries of Hell,
An agate light arrays this sea,
Each glabrous fay sports with an elf,
A one-eyed owl blinks at the light,
A green-horned toad croaks from a well.
Then pageantries fade in the gloom:
'Mid Cyclopean storms unstunned
Dank treasure-houses spill their quest
And march with thunder from far West;
Whilst lightning flashes skirr the noon,
Giant moans ascend from shoals unsunned,
The turf, Tartarus' coals of rest--
Helots to the haunts of Sin's crest--
Whereon jimp jinn ride to hell's mouth,
The silence stir with oaths of might;
Vile dragons roar at a zimb's sting;
A swarthy gump leers at the damn'd:
All soom to mountains of the South
Where sultry winds war with the light,
And zanies' voices rise to sing,
Hosannah to the idol's stand,
Where azure-censers' fumes enhance
The pomps, adverse to Sorrow's home.
Figent hydras squat on each throne,
Mute souls peer at the altar's flame
As phantom images do dance
In honour of this Hybrid's zone,
Bred in this gorce by some strange gnome,
Sib to him who plays Satan's game.
A Cesspool vext with leprous stench
And oils--A sign that spells a curse!
Visioned with Temples' diamonds bright
In domes as guide to those whose cry
Of fear, sprung from a wench's bench,
Lure all to this strange shore, adverse
To moonlit skies. By the ghaut's light,
(Ten-thousand furlongs wide and high)
The gaud, spun from sorcerers' art,
Reveals its part unto each soul--
Imperishable signs of groans
That time nor cyclones can eschew.
No lulling lanes point to a mart,
No tidings good their billows roll;
In fretful haunts where Sorrow moans,
Swarm souls in Penance's rasping pew:
Disastrous sights of Torture's dome!
Red-embered coals that burn their feet!
And reeking pools, vile with odours,
Make monstrous this blood-crimson vale.
Where demon-lovers chew a bone
As men and women choak in heat,
And blood-veinéd sights writhe in vapours--
Eternal shadows in each gale!
To groves where stiliness sat supreme,
Flee seers in quest of lagging rest;
To regions where giant echos roar,
Haste begotten sons in this lair:
There man-born wrecks lie down and dream
Of sea-winds that foam-billows bless'd,
Of auric realms where censers pour
Violaceous fumes thro' the air.
And in the deep-hued depths of gore,
(Blind bowels in Betelguese's hold)
Gyte vandals that a Dragon bore
Sleep with one eye as Midnight rules
These sons of Circe whom pyres adore;
Their thoughts vie with the luring fold,
Each sleepless orb glares like a boar--
Infernal hounds of shambling ghouls!
Porphyry mounts where crystals glare--
Twin carcants strung on idols' thighs
Whereon stones, blaze like fire bright,
And moonstones add their silver sheen,
A Circean draught, boiled in the air,
Is poured on cippus where Set lies;
Where vanquished Soldans sleep each night,
A greenish fungus-torch doth gleam.
Giant battles have been fought in hell,
Principalities rot in dust,
The tombs of kings speak of the past
When Incubi reigned with a rod.
Unnumberéd bones adorn each dell--
Where Rulers lie there stands a bust;
Blood-stainéd the hands of him whose task
Is blasting varlets like a god.
And when some spirit stalks thro' space
In quest of vaults--Temporal lees!
Treads in the grandeur of dank hell,
A batter'd shape that shakes its frame,
Spacious regions Courage chase,
Winds drive it to Misery's seas,
Laughs ascend from sequesteréd well,
Thro' shadows vague it hears its shame.
And tomb-thrown groans and sighs we hear--
Tho' midnight's near and afrite's sleep:
An Owl, perturbéd at some strange sound,
Scares bats in space and wings for domes.
All signs of woe hath flown with fear,
No maidens heave their breasts and weep,
All wrecks of Flesh lie on the ground,
Removed from shoals where Terror moans.
On skulls that some in Death hath left,
Croak toads to lizards in a well;
In cajons that the Ancient's digged,
Swim snakes that hiss at burning oils:
And bats and owls that offal cleft,
Proclaim their burdens to a dell,
Whilst crafts that some strange witch hath rigged,
Bring slaves unto this Cesspool's coils.
When carcants gleam like scarlet foam,
And hiss of pyres froth at each light
In dongas vext as jazels flare
From splinter'd tombs of Kings in dust,
A straggling mist that cleft Hell's dome,
Peers at the gloom and strobic sight
Of charnel shard as vypers blare
Wrathfully at each Monarch's bust.
And doleful dirges rake the gloom,
A whisper'd sin sobs at the wrecks;
Graven imps clasp papyrus old
And rant each Body's deeds of shame.
Come from a dank and sunken womb
All stranded ghouls on keels and decks
Where Cyclops fought as Vellum told
In cyphers bright, sprung from each flame,
Make hideous eyes at the night.
And terrors that Tartarus bred
Assail each kingdom treblefold:
A gangrel clan that someone flayed,
Skirr thro' the dungeoned halls in flight
And seek the caverns of the dead.
Where tapers gleam like virgin gold
The tombs of dead queens are arrayed:
There, too, a witch unfurls her cowl
And scans the shambling hordes to curse,
And with the light that cyclones split,
She juggles secrets of her lust,
And hurls her voice at Néphele's owl,
Past portals dark, where harlots nurse
Their skinless limbs that Torture bit,
And stamps her feet into the dust
As, into olpes she pours a tear:
And, musing at the clouds of gloom,
She wrinkles face and lifts her hands
To mutter words unto the night.
Whereon a ghoul-king hath writ Fear,
And changes gloom to purple bloom,
The shoals to opal-sanded strands
That reach, past wrecks to crystal light,
Where mossy vales with poppies bloom,
And hastes her flight from Terror's urn,
To onyx seas where agates glow,
And feats her eyes on woes of hell,
Upon the foam-dreams of king Doom,
Where monsters in red cauldrons burn,
'Mid shrieks that from their vitals flow
With airs that rasp each bone-strewn dell.
And sea-linkt skies of charnel black--
A savage dome! streaked scarlet red,
Where maids for demon lovers mourn;
And caskets spew a dusky foam
That quench the thirst of yon lone wrack
That holds the sultry, naked dead,
Who caught the eyes of waves forlorn,
Now bathed in blood in Hecate's home.
There garnet wrought and purple lights
Shine thro' poisoned vials of age
On churning pomps of casements old,
Where, when lofty aisles and halls
Ring rich with tenor runes in nights
Made solemn by a hoary sage
With darkling eyes that gleam like gold,
A prowling vandal storms the walls,
Nursed with dank venom broths and oils.
A blood-shot minx hunts for a man;
In stys and broken pyxs she peers
For him who ruined her honour, soul;
A harlot doomed in clinging coils
That now her longings curse and damn,
Squats on a skull and pulls her ears:
Or, just when she finds her life-goal,--
A cow'ring cur hid from the sight
Beneath a putrid mount of bone,
And tombs grow dank as rising sun
Makes red each dragon in the West,
She splits his heart and rasps with might,
A curse that rides the surging foam,
A message that this dastard son
Dies longing for a fatal quest--
Surcease of soul and conscience lost!
Then rants she sins unto each tomb
That sweat the lusts of those in dust,
And scarlet foam and hiss of oils
That her black deed to domes hath tossed,
Break into writhing life and bloom
As iron crowns and ceptres rust
Of fall'n monarchs crossed in coils.
Anear, two carcants glare like gold;
Afar, a ruby's light of red
Straggles thro' the pellicléd mist,
And to its vinewed dell haste I,
To catch the fleeting whispers told
To marble-lamps and head-stones, said,
By demon-husbands as I list,
To hold each mongrel harlot's sigh.
There, then, in tatter'd rags and hair,
Coarse-grained of features once so fine,
She spews her 'evil wrath and rage
Into the wriggling hands and face
Of him who lifts his voice to swear
A curse that stirs the air, whose time
(Tho' to king Satan speeds a page)
Hath come as Vengeance wins the race.
When crimson skies and stellor eyes
Swathed palace domes and turrets strong,
Her lips kiss'd mine, and mine did hers,
Ere evil smote her virgin soul.
And livid lights of bleeding dyes
(Whenas she prods him with her prong)
Make terrible her words so terse
That brands this scoundrel on this shoal.
And mutt'ring quick a ghastly oath
As turgid mists veil shadows vague,
She plucks his lying tongue that stole
Her husband's love and honour old,
And smites him stark and cold, tho' loath,
It peers to me her demon-ague
That binds her to this perjured soul,
She drinks his gore from carvels cold
And leers with fiendish lips at him,
Now tossed in phosphorescent holes.
And as I list to aspen cries,
Veiled augueries in vapours hie
And spell these tokens to each Inn:
Kingdoms, empires, nations, souls,
Shall miss the haunts of Paradise,
And in Subjection, crumbling, lie.
And when the regions, wrapped in light
By pillared dreams and pomps supreme
As curses stir the charnel air
That hide dank caverns deep and bold,
A battling monster smites the night
As lepers wink their orbs and dream
Of maidens that the men forswear,
Of templed vaults now stiff in cold.
And when a dim, unholy tomb,
Wreathes odours damp and vapours strong--
Heirs of the Doomed! as savage domes
Drip palsied sweat and carnal howls
Assail the stationed halls of gloom,
Where imps and devils march along
Beside a monarch's crumbling bones
As witches don their filthy cowls
And rant their sins thro' whistling halls,
Shake women fists at fleeing souls
And wail for bâtard children dead;
Whilst quickly from the burning dust
Ascends an oath that storms the walls
And rasps the distant mounts and shoals
Until each pyre glows scarlet red,
Each idol leers with wicked lust.
Forth from rubies flare scented fumes
As beacons glare and bubbles hiss
To crimson strands and altars' glow
Of burning oils in carvels deep,
Where; when Torture's bloody dome looms
Cold as shambling shapes of men kiss
Trembling women before the show,
Wraiths point to where their daughters weep.