The Star in the West

THE CUP 187 " Away , away , out of my sunlight ," waved Diogenes ; he saw before him a man , only a man full of brains and bowels . The maidens of Athens laughed at him , wizened misogynist and dreary sage , yet even the most beautiful of these monthly would spill her crim son libation to the moon . “ Yea ! truly , away, away , out of my sight , O shadow of a king ; but last night wert thou not fingering the delicate chalice of Cam paspe , and a few hours hence will not thy drowsy hand crimson the white womb of thy Mother Earth with the red lees of the grape of Bacchus , so full of the poppies of sleep , and the wormwood of sorrow . " From the silver goblet of laughter , that leaden cup of weeping , have the nations drunk the dregs of many lives : for the woman arrayed in purple and scarlet , and decked with pearls and precious stones , hath made them drunk on the golden cup of her abominations , on the wine of her fornications , on the filthy philtres of her whoredoms ; and they have become truculent , and boisterous , and mad ; cloaking the silken naked ness of the day with their woollen shroud of darkness , and seeking in the depths of night the mysteries of everlasting light . O Dweller in the Land of Uz , thou also shalt be made drunken , but thy cup shall be hewn from the sapphire of the heavens , and thy wine shall be crushed from the clusters of innumerable stars ; and thou shalt make thyself naked , and thy white limbs shall be splashed with the purple foam of immortality . Thou shalt tear the jewelled tassels from the purse of thy spendthrift Fancy , and shalt scatter to the winds the gold and silver coins of thy thrifty Imagination ; and the wine of thy Folly shalt thou shower midst the braided locks of laughing comets , and the glitter