82 MORS JANUA AMORIS
To bewitch our empyrean
Splendours of the under sky!
If the loud infernal pzean
Be our marriage-melody,
We are careless, we Achzean
Moulders of our destiny.
Hell, it may be, for his playing,
Renders Orpheus the decaying
Love—in Hell, if Hell there be,
I would seek Eurydice!
If she be the demon sister
Of my brain’s mysterious womb;
If she brand my soul and blister
Me with kisses of the tomb;
If she drag me where the bistre
Vaults of Hell gape wide in gloom ;
Little matter! I have kissed her!
Little matter! as a loom
She has woven love around me,
As with burning silver bound me,
Held me to her scented skin
For an age of deadly sin!
So I fasten to me tighter
Fetters on her limbs that fret ;
So my kisses kindle brighter,
Fiercer, flames of Hell, and set
Single, silent, as a mitre
Blasphemous, a crown of jet