The Augur
The Augur
I
Look! Look! upon the tripod through the smoke Of slain things kindled, and fine frankincense. Look deep beyond the phantoms these evoke Are sightless halls where spirit stifles sense. There do I open the old book of Fate Wherein They pictured my delight and me Flushed with the dawn of rapture laureate And leaping with the laughter of ecstacy. Mine eyes grow aged with that hieroglyph Of doom that I have sought : the fatal end. That which is written is written, even if Great Zeus himself great Zeus ! -- were to befriend. Even in the spring of the first floral kiss : "No happy end the gods have given for this ".
II
Save death alone ! I see no happy end, No happy end for this divine beginning. Child ! let us front a fate too ill to mend, Take joy in suffering for the sake of sinning. Ay ! from your lips I pluck the purple seed Of that pomegranate sleek Persephone Tasted in hell ; the irrevocable deed I do, and it is done. Naught else could be For us, the chosen of so severe a god To act so high a tragedy, the elect To suffer so, and so rejoice, the rod And scourge of our own shame, the gilt and decked Oxen that go to our own sacrifice At our own consecrated shrine of vice.
IV
Our love is like a glittering sabre bloodied With lives of men ; upsoared the sudden sun ; The choral heaven woke ; the aethyr flooded All space with joy that you and I were one. But in the dark and splendid dens of death Arose an echo of that jewelled song : There swept a savour of polluted breath From the lost souls, the unsubstantial throng That tasted once a shadow of our glory And turn them in the evil house to adore The godhead of our sin, the tragic story We have set ourselves to write, the sombre score Our daggers carve with
poesy sublime Upon the roof tree of despair and crime !
XII
There gods descend ; there devils rise. We dance, Dance to the madness of the waning moon, Write centuries of murder in a glance, Chiliads of rape in one unearthly tune. There is the sacrament of sin unveiled And there the abortion of Demeter eaten, The potion of black Dione distilled, The measure of Pan by whirling women beaten. These are but symbols, and our souls the truth ; These sacraments, and we the gods of them ; The sabbath incense curls to us to soothe Our spleen, engarlands us, a diadem For that unutterable deed that hurled Us, flaming thunderbolts ! against the world.
XIV
Behold ! I have said. The destiny obscure Of this our deed obscure we shall not skry. We know " no happy end ! "but we endure, Abiding as the Pole Star in the sky. You mix your life in mine then soul in soul We shoot forth, meteors, travelling on and on Far beyond Space to some dark-glimmering goal Where never sun or star hath risen or shone ; Where we shall be the evil light beyond time, Beyond space, beyond thought, supreme in deathless pang ; Nor shall a sound invade that hall of crime, Only the champing of the insatiate fang Of the undying worm our love, fast wed Unto no happy end. Behold ! I have said.
I
Look! Look! upon the tripod through the smoke Of slain things kindled, and fine frankincense. Look deep beyond the phantoms these evoke Are sightless halls where spirit stifles sense. There do I open the old book of Fate Wherein They pictured my delight and me Flushed with the dawn of rapture laureate And leaping with the laughter of ecstacy. Mine eyes grow aged with that hieroglyph Of doom that I have sought : the fatal end. That which is written is written, even if Great Zeus himself great Zeus ! -- were to befriend. Even in the spring of the first floral kiss : "No happy end the gods have given for this ".
II
Save death alone ! I see no happy end, No happy end for this divine beginning. Child ! let us front a fate too ill to mend, Take joy in suffering for the sake of sinning. Ay ! from your lips I pluck the purple seed Of that pomegranate sleek Persephone Tasted in hell ; the irrevocable deed I do, and it is done. Naught else could be For us, the chosen of so severe a god To act so high a tragedy, the elect To suffer so, and so rejoice, the rod And scourge of our own shame, the gilt and decked Oxen that go to our own sacrifice At our own consecrated shrine of vice.
IV
Our love is like a glittering sabre bloodied With lives of men ; upsoared the sudden sun ; The choral heaven woke ; the aethyr flooded All space with joy that you and I were one. But in the dark and splendid dens of death Arose an echo of that jewelled song : There swept a savour of polluted breath From the lost souls, the unsubstantial throng That tasted once a shadow of our glory And turn them in the evil house to adore The godhead of our sin, the tragic story We have set ourselves to write, the sombre score Our daggers carve with
poesy sublime Upon the roof tree of despair and crime !
XII
There gods descend ; there devils rise. We dance, Dance to the madness of the waning moon, Write centuries of murder in a glance, Chiliads of rape in one unearthly tune. There is the sacrament of sin unveiled And there the abortion of Demeter eaten, The potion of black Dione distilled, The measure of Pan by whirling women beaten. These are but symbols, and our souls the truth ; These sacraments, and we the gods of them ; The sabbath incense curls to us to soothe Our spleen, engarlands us, a diadem For that unutterable deed that hurled Us, flaming thunderbolts ! against the world.
XIV
Behold ! I have said. The destiny obscure Of this our deed obscure we shall not skry. We know " no happy end ! "but we endure, Abiding as the Pole Star in the sky. You mix your life in mine then soul in soul We shoot forth, meteors, travelling on and on Far beyond Space to some dark-glimmering goal Where never sun or star hath risen or shone ; Where we shall be the evil light beyond time, Beyond space, beyond thought, supreme in deathless pang ; Nor shall a sound invade that hall of crime, Only the champing of the insatiate fang Of the undying worm our love, fast wed Unto no happy end. Behold ! I have said.
posted by Chris Titan at 10:21 PM
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