The Mother’s Tragedy

THE GROWTH OF GOD 99 The earth grins open, as it were a tomb, And struggling earthquakes gnash their teeth be- neath her. The night is monstrous: in the flickering fire Strange faces gibber as the brands burn low; Old shapes of hate, young phantoms of desire More hateful yet, shatter and change and grow. There is a sense of terror in the air, And dreadful stories catch my breath and bind me, Soft noises as of breathing: unaware What devils or what ghosts may lurk behind me! Even my horse is troubled: vain it is Invoking memory for sweet sound of youth ; The song, the day, the cup, the shot, the kiss! This night begets illusion—ay! the truth. I know the deep emotion of that birth, When chaos rolled in terror and in thunder; The abortion of the infancy of earth; The monsters moving in a world of wonder ; The Shapeless, racked with agony, that grew Into these phantom forms that change and shatter ; The falling of the first toad-spotted dew; The first lewd heaving ecstasy of matter. ‘I see all Nature claw and tear and bite, All hateful love and hideous: and the brood Misshapen, misbegotten out of spite; Lust after death; love in decrepitude. .