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Page 1 of 11906 · PDF PAGE 94
LE JOUR DES MORTS. AT Paris upon Dead Man’s Day I danced into the cemetery. The air was cool; the sun was gay; The scent of the revolving clay Made me most wondrous merry. Earth, after an agonizing bout, Had swallowed up a widow clean. The issue hung for long in doubt :— —QOh! anybody can make out The mystery I mean. The dead were dancing with the worms; The live were laughing with their lemans; The dead-alive were making terms With God, and notaries, and germs, With house-agents and demons. 86
1906 · PDF PAGE 107
…y visible in it: for example, he who by nature or training or both was a tall man while he was alive, will remain as he was, after he is dead; and the fat will remain fat; and soon; and the dead man who in life had a fancy to have flowing hair, will have flowing hair. And if he was marked with the whip and had the prints of the scourge, or of wounds in him when he was alive, you might see the same in the dead body; and if his limbs were broken or misshapen when he was alive, the same appear- ance would be visible in the dead. And in a word, wha…
1906 · PDF PAGE 102
…ith him arose the ruddy and fair; He was right debonair. They twain to upper air and lower Advanced the eyes of power. Ay! but above the dead man’s head A lotus-flower was spread. Thence dripped the Amrita, whereby Life learneth not to die. The seventh in silence tended it Against the horror of the pit. ITI. Thus in a cage of wisdom lay The dead man, live as they. They hold him sacred from the sun, From death and dissolution. Within the charmédd space is naught Possible unto thought. 94
1906 · PDF PAGE 88
Also the taste of dust long dead Of ancient queens corrupt and fair Struck through the temple, subtly sped By demons dominant of the air. Last, on the flesh there came a touch Like sucking mouths and stroking hands That laid their foul alluring smutch Even to the blood’s mad sarabands. So did the neophyte that would gaze Into dead Pharaoh’s awful eyes Start from incalculable amaze To clutch the initiate’s place and prize. He bore the blistering thought aloft: It blazed in battle on his plume: With sage and warrior enfeoffed, He rushed alone thr…
1906 · PDF PAGE 95
…musing or of melancholy, Impatient of the next event, To spend, to barter, to be spent ;— I chuckled at the folly. **T would that I were dead and damned,”’ Thinks every wiser human. ‘* Corpses have room, and men are jammed; Those offer food, and these are crammed :— And cheaper, too, is woman!” I, being neither God nor ghost, A mere caprice of matter, Hop idly in the hideous host, Content to chaff the uttermost, To cackle and to chatter. They bring their wreaths to deck the dead, As skipping-ropes the devils use them. One through the immortelle…
1906 · PDF PAGE 93
The ringing cries of the victors peal In, in at the captured gate ! Then o’er the field the maniac passed And closed the dead men’s eyes. ‘‘ They are sleeping close with death at last !” The wanton warrior cries. But he who saw the dead man’s jaw Grind at the last was aware That the harlot’s kiss was Paradise That the soldier tasted there. And beyond the magnificent joy of death Shears through the sky, as a flame Ripping the air, the lightning breath Of the nation’s resonant fame. Hail! to the Hachiman deed well done! To the virile strength of …
1906 · PDF PAGE 109
I bore myself. Death was so dull. The dead are strangely beautiful To the new-comer; it wears off. II. They told me I was damned. The Shroff! Gave me ten dollars Mex. (For ease Of English souls the dead Chinese Are taxed) to pay my way in hell. On one pound sterling one lives well. For luxuries are cheaply paid Since Satan introduced Free Trade; And necessaries—woe is me !|— Are furnished to the damned soul free. Ill. God’s hell, Earth’s heaven, are not so far. Dinner brought oysters, caviar, ) Anchovies, truffles, curried rabbit (Bad for the a…
1906 · PDF PAGE 96
… dinner’s process. Thus one man’s work is one man’s play; The melancholy help the merry. All tread the ordered stupid way At Paris, upon Dead Man’s Day, In Pére Lachaise his cemetery. 88
1906 · PDF PAGE 99
…RIBUND. I, THE Seven Wise Men of Martaban Sate round the dying man. They were so still, one would have said: If he were dying, they were dead! The first was agéd; in his beard He muttered never a weird. The next was beautiful and gay : He had no word to say. The third was wroth and rusty red, Yet not a word he said. gI
1906 · PDF PAGE 89
Leaps like a flame, a flame encharmed To fire the pyramid heaven-spanned Wherein dead Pharaoh sits and stares Swathed in the wrappings of the tomb, With eyes whose horror flits and flares Like corpse-lights glimmering in the gloom Till all’s a blaze, one roar of flame, Death universal, locked and linked :— Aha! one names the awful Name— The twin red planets are extinct. SI G
1906 · PDF PAGE 86
…DeraD Pharaoh’s eyes from out the tomb Burned like twin planets ruby-red. Enswathed, enthroned, the halls of gloom Echo the agony of the dead. Silent and stark the Pharaoh sate: No breath went whispering, hushed or scared. Only that red incarnate hate Through pylon after pylon flared. As in the blood of murdered things The affrighted augur shaking skries Earthquake and ruinous fate of kings, Famine and desperate destinies, So in the eyes of Pharaoh shone The hate and loathing that compel 78
1906 · PDF PAGE 15
…the cataract, Blind steersman leader of the blind, Sole devil herald of the seven Thy garnished halls should house, O Christ, Thou being dead, thou sacrificed 7
1906 · PDF PAGE 108
IMMORTALITY. I. I MOVED. Remote from fear and pain The white worms revelled in my brain. Who travelled live may travel dead; The soul’s no tenant of the head. They had hanged my body by the neck; Bang went the trap. A little speck Shot idly upon consciousness Unconscious of the head’s distress When with dropped jaw the body swung So queer and limp; the purple tongue Shooting out swollen and awry. Men cheered to see the poisoner die. Not he! He grinned one visible grin, The last; then, muffled in his sin, IIe lived and moved unseen of those Nude…
1906 · PDF PAGE 73
… ! So let the scent of lily and rose, Of jasmine, taggara, pass away! Let patchouli, patchouli, repose My nostrils with your odour gray, Dead darlings exquisite in your decay! So, silk and velvet, fur and skin, Your sensuous touch shall quit me quite: I am at swiving strain with sin— I'll touch the stars, the blood run thin From the torn breast of Night, my mother Night. 65 F
1906 · PDF PAGE 119
The King-Ghost wears a crown of hopes forgotten; Dead loves are woven in his ghastly robe; Bewildered wills and faiths grown old and rotten And deeds undared his sceptre, sword, and globe. Keep us, O Mary maid, What time the King-Ghost goes arrayed ! The Hell-Wind whistles through his plumeless pinions; Clanks all that melancholy host of bones; Fate’s principalities and Death’s dominions Echo the drear discord, the tuneless tones. Keep us, dear God, from ill, What time the Hell-Wind whistles shrill. The King-Ghost hath no music but their rattli…