Part I
Ashtoreth
In thy blue pallid gown that shimmereth
So pale thou standest in the wan moonlight,
Where the gold censer near thy body white
Wraps thee around with its perfumed breath;
So wan thy high tiara glimmereth
Above thy mystical far eyes of light,
Thou seemest some dead goddess of the night,
O starry love, O changeless Ashtoreth.
Pallid thou standest in thy divinity,
Like some moon-idol of the buried time,
Before whose face priests sing in solemn chime.
So I prostrate before thy deity,
Unto thy face have solemn praises sung,
And in my hands a golden censer swung.
Parfait Amour
It is not that thy face is fair
As dying sunsets are,
Nor that thy lovely eyelids wear
The splendour of a star;
’Tis the deep sadness of thine eyes
Hath my heart captive led,
And that within thy soul I prize
The calmness of the dead.
O holy love, O fair white face,
O sweet lost soul of thine!
Thy bosom is an altar-place,
Thy kisses holy wine;
Sweet incense offer’d for my bliss
Is thy corrupted breath,
And on thy stained lips I kiss
The holy lips of Death!
Wherefore because thy heart is all
Fill’d full of mournfulness,
And thy gold head as with a pall
Hung o’er with sinfulness;
Because thy soul is utterly
Sinful unto the core—
Therefore my heart is bound to thee,
Dear love, forevermore!
Opium
Naught is more sweet than gently to let dream
The pallid flower of life asleep alway;
Where the dim censer sends up far from day
Unceasingly its still-ascending stream,
O where the air winds its myrrh-scented steam
About thy naked body’s disarray,
Shall not today’s gold to thy shut eyes seem
Born and forgot in the dead ages gray?
Sunk from life’s mournful loud processional,
For thee shall not with high uplifted urn
The Night pour out dreams that awake and say,
—We were, O pallid maiden vesperal,
Before the world; we also in our turn
By the vain morning gold scatter’d away.
Sombre Sonnet
I love all sombre and autumnal things,
Regal and mournful and funereal,
Things strange and curious and majestical,
Whereto a solemn savor of death clings:
Coerulian serpents mark’d with azure rings;
Awful cathedrals where rich shadows fall;
Hoarse symphonies sepulchral as a pall;
Mad crimes adorn’d with bestial blazonings.
Therefore I love thee more than aught that dies,
Within whose subtile beauty slumbereth
The twain solemnity of life and death;
Therefore I sit beside thee far from day
And look into thy holy eyes alway,
Thy desolate eyes, thine unillumin’d eyes.
Languor
Although thy face be whiter than the dawn,
Fairer than aught the dawning hath descried,
Hast thou not now, O dear love deified,
Enough of kisses upon thy forehead wan?
The days and nights, like beads to pray upon,
Pass by before our eyes and not abide,
And so these things shall be till we have died,
Until our bodies to the earth are gone.
I think how pleasant such a thing must be,
That all thy lovely limbs should fall away,
And drop to nothing in their soft decay.
Then may thy buried body turn to me,
With new love on thy changed lips like fire,
And kiss me with a kiss that shall not tire.
Ennui
I sat in tall Gomorrah on a day,
Boring myself with solitude and dreams,
When, like strange priests, with sacerdotal tread,
The seven mortal sins, in rich array,
Came in and knelt: one old, and weak, and gray,
One that was shrouded like a person dead,
And one whose robes cast reddish-purple gleams
Upon her scornful face at peace alway.
They swung before me amschirs of strange gold,
And one most beautiful began to pray,
Dreamily garmented in pallid blue.
But I said only—I have dream’d of you.
Naught really is; all things are very old,
And very foolish. Please to go away.
Litany
All the authors that there are bore Me;
All the philosophies bore Me;
All the statues and all the temples bore Me;
—All the authors that there are bore Thee;
All the philosophies bore Thee;
All the statues and all the temples bore Thee.
All the women of the earth weary Me;
The fruit of the vine wearieth Me;
All the symphonies weary Me.
—All the women of the earth weary Thee;
The fruit of the vine wearieth Thee;
All the symphonies weary Thee.
Victory and defeat fatigue Me;
Gladness and sorrowing fatigue Me;
Life and death fatigue Me.
—Victory and defeat fatigue Thee;
Gladness and sorrowing fatigue Thee;
Life and death fatigue Thee.
The earth and the heavens weary Me;
The sun by day and the moon by night weary Me;
All the great stars of heaven weary Me.
—The earth and the heavens weary Thee;
The sun by day and the moon by night weary Thee;
All the great stars of heaven weary Thee.
The glorious company of the Apostles tireth Me;
The goodly fellowship of the Prophets tireth Me;
The noble army of Martyrs tireth Me.
—The glorious company of the Apostles tireth Thee
The goodly fellowship of the Prophets tireth Thee;
The noble army of Martyrs tireth Thee.
All the race of men weary Me;
The Cherubim and the Seraphim weary Me;
Myself wearieth Me.
—All the race of men weary Thee;
The Cherubim and the Seraphim weary Thee;
Thyself wearieth Thee.
Harvard
On His Twenty-First Year
Tired Muse, put faded roses on thy brow,
Put thy bare arms about the harp, and sing:
—I am a little bor’d with everything.
Past the clos’d jalousies the mlengkas go;
They are not beautiful; no Greek they know;
They go about and howl and make a fuss;
I gaze through sâd-shap’d eyelids languorous,
Far off from Ispahân where roses blow.
Professors sit on lofty stools upcurl’d,
Through Yankee noses drooling all day long;
I find all these things quite ridiculous.
Before despis’d old age comes over us,
Let us step into the great world ere long.
We shall be very grand in the great world!
Pride
They come and go, they pass before my soul,
Desire and Love, weak Anguish and Distress,
Shame and Despair: in phantom crowds they press,
Life’s poor processional, Time’s lowly dole.
Mournful their voices as slow bells that toll,
Voices of them that curse and do not bless;
Ineffable things wrapp’d round with loathsomeness,
The deeds that I have done in Fate’s control.
They leer and moan, they shriek and threat and lower,
Ignoble faces that the sky do mar;
My changeless soul from her high pride of power
Looks down unmov’d. So the calm evening star
Upon the
