Collected Works (Vol. III)

LIBER TERTIUS VEL LABORIS 179 O place of all places discrowned ! Of Hecate darkens. My sad soul hearkens ; Moves fearfully on :- ing, I linger awhile ! But fronting me tearful, Me full of lament, Shoots up the fearful Den of the hound. Ages they spent, Gods, in the graving That cavern profound, That temple of hate, Of horror and craving :— O who shall abate The moaning, the raving? Dark the dull flame Of the altar, the flood Of the black lamb’s blood ! But who shall proclaim That his soul can descry The depth of that cavern immense where the guardian of Orcus may lie? Sleepest thou, devil? Monster of evil ! Spawn of Typhon By Echidna’s lust ! The hateful revel _In blood and dust ! The obscene crone And the monster’s terror ! The hideous thrust Of an unclean thirst In the halls of error ! _Expunged and accurst, A lapping of hate, A bride-bed rotten, And thou, miscreate And misbegotten ! O Hecate, hear me! The terrors awaken, The cavern is shaken With horrible groanings. Cryings and moanings And howlings draw near me. Lament- I tremble, I fear me ! My lyre is forsaken. The heart of the hollow Is helpless to bear The notes of Apollo Through Stygian air. But heavier shrieking Revolves and resounds In the ghastly profounds; And the voice unspeaking Of the hound of the damned Runs eager, and bounds, Malignantly crammed In my ears, and the noise Of infernal joys In the houses of sin :-— Let me pass to a direr place, to the terrors unspoken within ! Dead silence succeeds The sound of the prayer. Again the loud lyre Shudders and bleeds In the desolate air With a sound as of fire ! The hound recedes ; But the gates stand there, Barring desire, Barring the way Of the dead unburied, Unshrived, and unblessed ; They stand and pray In legions serried, Beating the breast, Tearing the hair, Rending the raiment. There is none. to care. No golden paymen Availeth at all. There is none to call; There is none to pity : They stand in their pain At the gate of the city. There is none to feel Or give relief; They are lost; they are vain ; They are eaten of grief.