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Page 1 of 21901 · PDF PAGE 9
PROLOGUE SIN: AN ODE E rivers, and ye elemental caves, Above the fountains of the broken ice, Know ye what dragon lurks within your waves ? Know ye the secret of the cockatrice ? The basilisk whose shapeless brood Take blood and muck for food ? The sexless passion, the foul scorpion spawn ? The witches and the evil-chanting ones Who strangle stars and suns, Eclipse the moon, and curse against the dawn ? Know ye the haunts of death ? The hole that harboureth The sickening breath, Whence all disease is bred, and all corruption drawn ? Nay, these …
1901 · PDF PAGE 80
… press Your beating bosom like a living flower; To die in your embraces, in the shower That dews like death your swooning loveliness. To know you love me; that your body leaps With the quick passion of your soul; to know Your fragrant kisses sting my spirit so; To be one soul where Satan smiles and sleeps ;— Ah! in the very triumph-hour of Hell Satan himself remembers whence he fell!
1901 · PDF PAGE 76
…ny prayers, Or perfumes or libations. What must be Will be. Material succour ye demand In vain. But ye may purify yourselves. AMENHATEP. Knows then thy prophecy our final doom ? THE LEPER. , Inquire not of your fate! Myself do know, Mayhap. Ye shall know. I await the event.
1901 · PDF PAGE 124
I1O EPILOGUE And thou, Persephone, I know thy story, That I must taste the terror of thy wrong: How Hades ride across the promontory, Snatch my pale body in mid over-song ; Drag me from sight of my Apollo’s glory With horses strong. | Nay! as Apollo half the day is shrouded, As Artemis twice seven nights is dark; Surely he shines in other land unclouded, Surely her shaft shall find another mark. So dawns the day on Acheron ghost-crowded, And on my bark. I know not how yon world may prove, nor whither Hermes conduct me to what farther end. Yet i…
1901 · PDF PAGE 19
…am dismayed at my discovery. (Slowly.) I never guessed my own poor silliness Until that moment when you frightened me. CORA. And now you know how dear he is to you! Come, child, I love you both. Your happiness Is my life’s purpose. I have seen the truth Of this in you; it comes to every one. I know that he is half in love with you. Look once again as you did look just now, And he would die for you. O foolish girl! [MADELINE weeps guzetly for a little, CORA caressing her. MADELINE. Please let me go: you are too kind to me! CORA. Rest, sunny head…
1901 · PDF PAGE 28
…eet spirit cannot reach My fury. You are silent. Yet you love! I read it in the terror of your eyes, The crimson of your burning face. I know, I know you love me! Cora, Cora, tell me! O she will die! I would not—I was rough— My overmastering desire to you— My queen, my wife, this maddens me. CORA, recovering. You fool! You beast! I hate you for your stupid self! I am defiled! Go! Touch me not! Speak not! I am accursed of the Lord my God. [Shrieks. ULRIC. Darling! my darling! How have I done this? CORA. Fool! It is madness! Yes, and punishment. …
1901 · PDF PAGE 116
( 102) LOVE’S WISDOM HERE is a sense of passion after death. Passion for death, desire to kiss the scythe, All know, whose limbs in envious glory writhe, And lie exhausted, mingling happy breath. ‘‘Could I end so—this moment!” Lingereth The lazy gaze, half mournful and half blythe. But there’s another, when the body dieth— Hast thou no knowledge what the carcass saith ? I watched all night by my dead lover’s bed. I saw the spirit; heard the motionless Lips part in uttering a supreme caress: “T care not nor for life nor death;” they said, ‘““Onl…
1901 · PDF PAGE 33
… us. ULRIC. Unspoken, I demand thy heart of thee. CORA. My heart is broken. This will murder thine. ULRIC. Kill, but not torture! Let me know the truth.
1901 · PDF PAGE 115
…rs, Spurning the quiet woodland: now the light Stirs bird and beast—a thousand glowing wonders Flash into glory, lambent to the sight. I know, I feel the Godhead set above me, My own high part in His celestial sphere; In life, in death, the universe cries—love me !— God in my heart, and all the world is dear!
1901 · PDF PAGE 34
…h evasion. Iam bound a slave To this wild passion. It will eat me up. CORA. You cannot guess the horror that you speak. I tell you, if I know your golden heart, This detestation of yourself shall cry The cry of Edipus—“ I have profaned——” ULRIC. What sphinx more cruel? What new C:dipus ? You riddle, Cora, and it breaks my heart. [He sinks exhausted. (Rallying.) By God, I swear to you no lie shall keep Its Dead Sea bar against our marrying. CORA. The truth! Thetruth! Thetruth! I am indeed That whore I told you. That makes nothing here. I am the …
1901 · PDF PAGE 38
24 THE MOTHER’S TRAGEDY ULRIC. Believe me, I am nervous and distraught. You know me, how excitable I am. A moment, and you see me calm again. Come, Cora, do not frighten Madeline! [ He vatses her to lead her from the room. CORA. Where would you lead me? I am blind with tears. ULRIC. I have no tears. Mine eyes are hard and cold As my intention. Help me, Madeline. CORA. God will avenge me bitterly on you If you stretch hand to aid this infamy. ULRIC. You shall not wreck her life. Be silent now! Believe me, it 1s nothing, Madeline! She often falls…
1901 · PDF PAGE 10
Viil PROLOGUE Caught in a chain, linked corpses for a lure! Shall human senses feel Or human tongue reveal ? Nay, shall the mortal know them and endure Whose little period Is limited by God ; Whose poor abode Is the mean body, prey to all distemperature ? Yet, mortal, in the Light and Way Divine, Gird on the armour of the Holy One: Seek out the secret of the inmost shrine, Strong in the might and spirit of the sun. Arise, arise, arise, Give passage to mine eyes, Ye airs, ye veils; ye bucklers of the Snake! I knew the deepest cells, Where the fo…
1901 · PDF PAGE 66
52 THE FATAL FORCE The incense fumes before me: I am come, Isis, within this body that ye know, Transmuting! Look upon me, ye blind eyes! Behold, dull souls and ignorant desires! See if I be not altogether god! [She assumes the appearance of her mature beauty, standing before them with the wand upratsed. Wonder and worship! Sing to me the song Of the extreme spring! Rejoice in my great strength And infinite youth and new fertility, And lave your foreheads in this holy milk That springs, the fountain of humanity, Luminous in the temple! Raise th…
1901 · PDF PAGE 21
….” Some one circumstance: “At last That, and its effects, are past.” Some one terror—subtle foe !— “‘T have laid that spectre low!” They know not, learn not, cannot calculate How subtly Fate Weaves its fine mesh, perceiving how to wait, Or how accumulate
1901 · PDF PAGE 58
…the livid mark of sin That was the leprosy of her own soul, And drove me forth to compass my disgrace With infamies ineffable. PACHAD. I know; I shall avenge. The old gods come again. THE LEPER. Nay! I have lived through all these barren years, Discrowned, diseased, abominable, cast out, And meditating on the event of life, And that initiated Hope that we, Royal, inherit, of the final life, Nor newer incarnation, and possessed Of strange powers, who have moved about this court Loathed, and unrecognised, and shunned, have thought That the old bo…
1901 · PDF PAGE 29
…k no more words—each syllable strikes here, [Hand to heart. A cloud of wingéd scorpions, that rage In mine own deepest self; for there I know Tame harpies that had ceased to torture me; And this more ghastly brood renews their sting, Adding a triple poison! O my soul Is torn with pangs more horrible than hell, Scorching the very marrow of my bones, Corrupting me—corrupting me, I say—
1901 · PDF PAGE 72
…hateful deeds, And so set free myself from my own fate, Whom I will smite to end the coil of things Here, to begin—what life? For Life I know Stands like a living sentinel behind The rugged barrier of death, the gates Where the rude valley narrows, and man hears The steep and terrible cataract of time Break, and lose shape and substance in the foam , And spray of an eternity of air! My death, and not my life, may crown me king! So let me not be buried in that state Due to the hateful rank that I abjure By this proud act, but let my monument Say…
1901 · PDF PAGE 113
…s 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:…
1901 · PDF PAGE 85
…d not mine: I was a fool to kiss Her dead lips—aye, her living lips for that ! I cannot bid her rise and live again. I would not. Nay, I know not; for is this My triumph or my ruin, satiate Of death, insatiate alway of pain ? What have I done? In vain, in vain!
1901 · PDF PAGE 61
… Forgetful, hateful, impotent, except The last initiation seize my soul, And fling me into Isis’ very self, The immortal, mortal. Let me know this night Whether my place is found among the stars That wander in the deep, or made secure As the high throne of her that dwells in heaven, Fruitful for life and death, Wisdom her name, 47