Part II
Mad Sonnet
Lo, in the night I cry out, in the night,
God! and my voice shall howl into the sky!
I am weary of seeing shapeless things that fly,
And flap into my face in their vile flight;
I am weary of dead things that crowd into my sight,
I am weary of hearing horrible corpses that cry,
God! I am weary of that lidless Eye
That comes and stares at me, O God of light!
All, all the world is become a dead blur,
God! God! and I, stricken with hideous blight,
Crouch in the black corners, and I dare not stir.
I am aweary of my evil plight.
If thou art not a dead corpse in thy sky,
Send thou down Death into my loathed sty!
The House of Youth
Far in the melancholy hills it stands,
Far off; and through the vista of the years,
Down which my soul its helpless journey steers,
It flames a fire to lighten all the lands,
A fire that burns me and a flame that brands
Me, whose dead days pass slow as heavy tears.
The road my footsteps tread is dim and still,
There darkness abides and silence endlessly,
And the low way mine eyes can scarcely see;
And yet the light and sound from that far hill
Like the sky’s fire my weary pathway fill,
So that it seems a place of life to be.
The world is but a background for it there,
There where it stands, loud like a beaten lyre,
And flames blood-red like some vast funeral-pyre,
Whereat my heart to fail doth not forbear;
Of all the things that have been made soe’er
Only the House remains, a quenchless fire.
Ah God, that this thing were not in the world—
The hateful House that flames with light and song
And weary singing all the ages long;
Ah that ev’n this might in the dust be hurl’d,
And crush’d and slain, even as my heart, where curl’d
The kindly armies of the worm do throng.
Yea, surely I have seen it long ago,
Far sunken in the weary dust of time;
Yea surely even that stair so hard to climb
I climb’d, and strode its hallways to and fro;
The which were bright with many lamps aglow,
And loud with choristers in ceaseless chime.
De Profundis
Out of the grave, O God, I call to thee,
Be thou not deaf unto my dolorous cry;
My soul is fallen down into the sty,
And the dead things are crawling over me;
O thou my God, give me the worm to flee,
Out from the pit’s depths I would rise on high.
Again am I fallen down into the grave,
My soul is sunken in the place of slime,
I am too weak its loathed walls to climb,
Thou, only thou, O God, art strong to save;
Lo, in mine eyes the worms have made their cave,
And squatting toads oppress me all the time.
Yea, from this pit I have crawl’d out before;
With groans and cries and many a dolorous fall,
I have climbed up its impregnable wall;
I shall not rise now from its slimy floor;
O God, hear thou my lamentable call,
Or from the grave I come not evermore.
I am become a housing for the toad;
All things are fled wherein I took delight;
There is no joy here, and there is no light;
O God, O God, I have reap’d what I sow’d;
I am become a dead thing in the night,
And in my heart the worms have their abode.
Lo, from my body all my might is fled,
And all the light is gone out of mine eyes;
Mine ears hear only lamentable cries,
And eyeless things stand round about my head;
I am made as a man that slowly dies;
I am made as a man already dead.
Prayer
In Time of Plague
Holy Pestilence, holy Pestilence, gird thee with might,
Holy Pestilence, come thou upon them, come thou at night,
Holy Pestilence, put on thy mantle, put on thy crown,
Holy Pestilence, come on the cities, come and strike down,
Holy Pestilence, let them all perish, touch’d with thy breath,
Holy Pestilence, let them grow rotten, moulding in death,
Holy Pestilence, put on thy garments, a crown on thy head,
Holy Pestilence, let all the nations fall at thy tread,
Holy Pestilence, let them all perish, let them be dead.
Holy Pestilence, then shall the cities sink with thy might,
Holy Pestilence, they shall lie desert, plague-struck at night,
Holy Pestilence, then shall the rulers, crown’d with a crown,
Holy Pestilence, feeling them stricken, reel and fall down,
Holy Pestilence, then shall the nations faint with thy breath,
Holy Pestilence, then shall the valleys be cover’d with death,
Holy Pestilence, peasant with ruler, body with head,
Holy Pestilence, all shall be stricken under thy tread,
Holy Pestilence, all shall be rotten, all shall be dead.
Sestettes
I
Thou shalt rejoice for woe:
The pallid goblet old,
That holds thy life’s dull wine,
Is made thereby divine;
Stain’d with a purpler glow,
And wrought in stranger gold.
II
From the suck’d lees of pain,
We have won joy again:
Death shall thee not distress:
That sleepy bitterness
To thy kist lips shall be
The supreme exstasy.
III
Put ashes on your golden body bare,
Puissant as musk, bitter-sweet as to die,
Ashes upon your arms that grow not old,
And on your unassuaged lips of gold:
So we will wanton in love’s sepulchre,
And mock the face of Death with blasphemy.
IV
I love you more than Death: your mournful head,
Your shrouding hair, and your unfathom’d eyes,
And your white body beautiful, alas,
Priestess and victim in love’s holy mass …
Your flesh that loves, and loving ever dies …
I could not love you more if you were dead.
V
Death is death; the little host that squirms,
The smell, the dark, the coffin clos’d, and I
So soft, so soft; no movement, and no breath;
No ears, no nose, no eyeballs; Death is Death;
The sepulchre, no sight, no sound, no cry,
And always; Death is Death; the worms! the worms
