Collected Works (Vol. I)

130 JEZEBEL; AND OTHER TRAGIC POEMS The desert wind my body burns, The voice of flesh consumes my soul; My body towards the city turns, My spirit seeks its fierier goal ; In wells of heaven to quench my thirst, And take God’s hand among the first. I conquered self; I grew at last A prophet chosen of the Lord ; I blew the trumpet’s iron blast That called on Zimri Omri’s sword; My voice inflamed the fiery steel That was to smite upon Jezreel. And now, I haste from yonder sands, With fervour filled, to say God’s doom To Ahab of the bloody hands, The spoiler of his father’s tomb, The slayer of the vineyard king. God’s judgment, and his fate, I bring. The city gleams afar; I see Samaria’s white walls on high ; The mountains echo back to me The vengeful murmur of the sky; All heaven and earth on me attend To prophesy the tyrant’s end. The-gates are closed because of night Whose heavy breath iafects the air5 The dog-star gleams, a devilish light : I thought I saw behind me glare The eyes of fiends. IT thought I heard An evil laugh, a mocking word. The gates swing open at the Name, Without a warder roused from sleep; I pass, with face of burning flame, That is not quenched, although I weep. (For even my tears are tears of fire, For loathing, madness, and desire.) Ah God ! the traps for fervent feet ! The morrow beaconed, and I came By where the golden groves of wheat In summer glories fiercely flame; To those white courts, by princes trod, Where Ahab sat, and mocked at God. Where Ahab sat :—but lo! I saw No king, no tyrant to be curst ; But she, who filled me with blind awe, She, for whose blood my thin veins thirst; The blossom of a painted mouth And bare breasts tinctured with the south. For lo! the harlot Jezebel ! Her hands dropped perfume, and her tongue (A flame from the dark heart of hell, The ivory-barred mouth, that stung With unimaginable pangs) Shot out at me, and Hell fixed fangs. Her purple robes, her royal crown, The jewelled girdle of her waist, Her feet with murder splashed, and brown With the sharp lips that fawn and taste, The crimson snakes that minister To those unwearying lusts of her. And all her woman’s scent did drift A steam of poison through the air; The haze of sunshine seems to lift And toil in tangles of black hair, The hair that waves, and winds, and bites, And glistens with unholy lights. For lo! she saw me, and beheld My trembling lips curled back to curse, Laughed with strong scorn, whose music knelled The empire of God’s universe. And on my haggard face upturned She spat! Ah God! how my cheek burned ! Then, as a man betrayed, and doomed Already, I arose and went, And wrestled with myself, consumed With passion for that sacrament Of shame. From that day unto this My cheek desires that hideous kiss.