Phrase search ignores case and repeated whitespace. All-words search finds whole words anywhere on the same page. OCR errors can affect results.
… ! Ho ! a million rats Herald the brat’s First yelp. A vast company of rats issue from her, and rush squeaking into the darkness. MIRIAM God be mine help ! Adrammelek exacts a death For every dance with Astoreth. GOVINDA Cling to the ass-god, quean ! Now while his loud obscene
I THE RED STAR SCENE. — A grove of ilex in Arcadia. The terrace is of white mar- ble. In the centre an image of the god Pan in Ivory and Gold. The pedestal is of lapis-lazuli, the space around of malachite. It is strewn with red roses. Before the image of the god stands a naked man, in whose hand is a sharp sword heavy and curved. Its blade is of blue steel, its hilt encrusted with rubies. The man is come to his full strength ; he is very dark with deep-set glittering eyes of green flecked with fire. His beard is short, square, curly, and black…
…, and bruised, and rotten. 2ND NYMPH So shall full-fed brothel-knaves Kick them to indecent graves In the name of the sweet Dove That is God — for God is Love. ALEXANDER See ye naught but cruelty In the infinite To-Be ? Look you, I have seen a star Threatening pestilence or war In the vault that hangs — a splash Like a scar.
42 THE WORLD’S TRAGEDY. The god hath on harsh face. Take me home now ! ALEXANDER to the Ist satyr What next ? How shall a babe scarce- sexed Avail when the dread offering Of the world’s mightiest king Is not received ? IST SATYR Impale You trembling fawn too frail Upon that ivory ruby rod That juts from the azure throne of God ! Then — as the scream chills the blue air, Draw the curved steel along The snow-pure throat ! Hold the bright hair Firm in one swarthy grip ; And ere the blood leap strong Suck with insensate lip That wine of Pan ! Ah, d…
…suffer—and to learn ! They vanish, embracing the nymphs. ALEXANDER I am alone — — With Pan — With the cold stone. Nay ! with the riotous god that ran Through all, and conquered all, And became all, and now is all. — Oh matchless musical Seven-throated god, I hear thy stridency Like nereids playing on the wind-struck sea That heaves herself with sensuous swaying ! I have seen a wild girl woven in gold Stained with blue and scarlet — playing Before me — she transported me With the writhings of her painted hips And her belly jerking up to my lips,…
… is there no shame ? He kicks her brutally. The guard moves off. MIRIAM The dawn ! oh, curses on the dawn that breaks This night of joy. God ! my whole being wakes Into a world of rapture. I am I At last — the little fool that wondered why ! I am abreast of God’s whole tide of thought. Like gold into fine linen, I am wrought Into the royal vesture of the globe. I am the Empress of the City of Sin, Wrapped in its purple robe Stained with mine own maid’s blood. Yea ! for all glorious within Am I, most like the daughter of a king, Voluptuously lan…
… ? To the Greeks foolishness, etc. The wisdom of man is foolishness, etc. We must have faith. THE W. M. — In men ? THE P. B. — Never. In God ! THE W. M. — But you believe in the Bible ? THE P. B. — Every word of it, thank God ! THE W. M. — In the Protestant or the Catholic Bible ? The Bible was written by men, translated by men, criti-
THE WHITE WIND. 67 With face averted that constrains me to him — And this blind worm is avarice. Let me woo him ! Sweet God ! I’ll serve thee. This is Piety Twin-bodied with Hypocrisy that darts His icy slime into my heart of hearts. Here cringing Pity my wet womb inflates, And puffed-out Charity with loose red cheeks And greasy eyes. The Bigotry that sneaks Home to my home ; and once installed there, hates The bleeding wound his mouth is fastened on ; And here is Chastity that slavering sates His lust without the walls, grins, and is gone, Pre…
…” He calls truth lies, and sneers at youth and beauty, Pays cash for love and fancies he has won it — Duty means church, where he thanks God he’s done it ! Morley’s Hotel is the one stance to see Our Nelson from ! — Oh God ! that I should be Alone among this slime ! — I saw Thy Graal : Show me the men that have not bowed to Baal !
…HE WHITE WIND. 7I On rugs of fur and silk Broidered with curious device Of basilisk and cockatrice Upon the broad-woven scarlet marge. — God ! how this bosom boils with milk, Its veined radiance swelling — Ah ! the light grows — Back, from these splendid woes And joys obscure Into the squalid and impure House, and the filth indwelling ! She crawls within the hovel.
…great mountains of the earth. Pollitt had made a poet of me ; Eckenstein had made a man of me ; Cecil Jones and Allan Bennett had made a God of me. I had forgotten the Plymouth Brethren ! But early in this spring, I went down to Eastbourne to my mother’s house, and some of the old bitterness came back. In her house were two vile old women, hypocrites and slaves to the marrow. The mere meanness and old- maid-ishness of it would have sickened me. These mange- bitten cats ! But there was worse. Only one food was on the table for breakfast, lunch, …
… in their simple worship as I am with the grander and austerer conceptions of Mohammed. But England ! The people have materialized their God into a Parish Councillor, at the best ; at the worst, he has been made the excuse for every crime. The prevalence of syphilis in the Indian army has in- creased from 8 % to 80 % lest God should be shocked by our unholy recognition of the human nature of the human soldier. It is useless to multiply examples. All I wish to do is to justify my agreement with Shelley and Nietzsche in
…s England to-day a hell for any man who cares at all for freedom. That religion they call Christianity ; the devil they honour they call God. I accept these definitions, as a poet must do, if he is to be at all intelligible to his age, and it is their God and their religion that I hate and will destroy. THE POEM ITSELF I should really leave this to my friend Captain Fuller to dissect at his leisure, that he might bye-and-bye edify the public in a little monograph of say 350,000 words. But
…ia trees ? CHIRON Yes, if Rhodon there will lend us Her red fleece — like sunset glowing, With the doubtful venture showing Where — what God shall there befriend us ? RHODON Mocker ! I shall come. Beware Lest my manhood match you there !
XXXII PREFACE. I should look ! ; (f) God said I musn’t. And so on through the alphabet of cowardice. Look at your Christian as he sits down to dinner. He won’t eat melon because the weather is hot, and he might get cholera ; mutton ? think of the poor sheep ! pota- toes ? bad for his fat ; artichoke ? bad for his gout. Tomatoes ? cause of cancer. Wine ? the great curse of our day, my dear sir. Milk ? a mere mass of tubercle bacilli. Water ? Typhoid ! do you want to poison me, my dear friend ? Beer ? Well, perhaps a little beer — for he has sha-…
… I went long walks in the moun- tains, where my tutors could not follow me, and where delightful peasant girls could and did follow me — God bless them ! One day I had a difference of opinion with a tutor, in the course of which he fell from a rock into a loch (whose name I forget) near Forsinard. Memory fails to recall the actual cause of dispute ; but I think I had thrown his fishing-rod into the loch, and thought that it was expedient for him to try and retrieve it. The same night he found me in the heather with Belle Mc. Kay the local beaut…
…ut and stood by the sea. I was lost in reverie. Here were these hags of hell, the product of an unvarying diet of cold boiled Jesus ! By God ! could I not save somebody ? These had once been fresh healthy English girls, fit for life and laughter. C. B. J. had mummified them to what they were. I would be the Saviour of the future ! I must have wandered in my meditation ; for presently I found myself lying on the grass under the full moon and the stars, the sea’s low plash beneath my feet, the soft breeze blowing over me, a whisper — oh essence o…
THE RED STAR. 4I Of sun and rain. Arise ! The red gleam in thine eyes ! Up, up and slay ! 2ND SATYR Fair child, Laugh thou ; God honours thee (Look ! then, methinks, he smiled !) To condescend to bless That unripe loveliness. The acid of thine immaturity Shall be a sharpness in his mouth Cloyed with too clinging sweet Of the full-bosomed South. IST SATYR Beside those rose-fair feet Dimpled with fairy kisses There’s no bright-tinted bird In all the blue abysses Worth even a plumeless word. THE CHILD I do not like this place.
…e forward. THE HAG Ho ! we will lift the prudish latch. Dear apeling, hold the torches while I catch This monster. So. Dispatch ! MIRIAM God ! let it be a boy. I would enjoy His love. Who hath come forth with such keen pain Owes keener pleasure, going back again. A curse upon that Dove.
…of joy and love ! ALEXANDER Is there nothing but distress In the mystic vision lurking ? IST NYMPH Ah ! but were thy loveliness With the God supremely working ! ALEXANDER Nymph, thy face is like a flower Fairer than the driven foam ! Shining like an honeycomb Is thy body — and thy soul Shoots me to the gilded goal. I shall master yet the hour. SATYRS King of Kings, we bow before Thee ; As our Master we adore Thee.