Of mine exhaustless flame,

  But comrade of my teen,

  Spouse of that epicene

  Incontinence of shame.

  Twin Love! Soul’s dual spouse,

  Dream-serpent of my life,

  Rose-garland of my brows

  Within that ivory house,

  Sex with itself at strife.

  Were I a wanton stream,

  Thou mightest bathe in me,

  Yet in that happy dream

  Methought my heart did deem

  We mingled utterly.

  O sexless! deathless! fair

  Beyond the world to me,

  Thy love-gift I will wear,

  Thy joys my soul shall share,

  Being made one with thee.

  So, love, the days may keep

  My nameless love from me;

  Yet over slumber’s deep

  I will sail into sleep

  Thither to lie by thee,

  Hold thee with arms that cleave

  Lock thee in limbs that leap,

  Chain thee with lips that leave

  Kisses of blood to weave

  Castles of hope in sleep.

  Poppy! best flower whose bud

  Sends dreams to men that die,

  I drain thy drowsy flood

  That our impatient blood

  May mingle utterly.

  So, Hermes, thou art wed,

  So, Aphrodite, mine,

  In one sweet spirit shed

  In one ambrosial bed,

  In one fair frame divine.

  Like clouds in rain, like seas

  Exultant as they roll,

  We mix in ecstacies,

  And, as breeze melts in breeze,

  Thy soul becomes my soul.

  I come to thee with tears,

  Nameless immortal dove;

  Forget the fleet-foot years

  In the incarnate spheres

  Of our mysterious Love.

  ‘EREBUS’

  Something of monstrous in our love, our bed,

  Soothes me with strong desire,

  Strong but availing nothing – black and red

  Thy body gleams, as fire

  Thy great eyes burn, thy lips respire

  It seems unnatural breath within their tomb.

  Ah! the red portals of thy dusky womb,

  Wherein my loves expire,

  ‘Twixt thy black breasts to rise, kissed hard by thee

  Till joy flows full once more, salt river to sweet sea.

  Fairer than roses are thy swarthy cheeks,

  Thine hair more sharp than gold;

  Purple is warmer than mere red, when seeks

  My love thy lips to hold.

  Ah Queen! that other’s breasts are cold

  Being of wafted snowflakes beside thine;

  Her breasts give milk as thine the fiercest wine;

  Her ivory thighs enfold

  Limbs not so amorous as these that lie

  By the dark limbs, and lust for their imperial dye.

  Thy mouth takes me within its eager lips;

  My mouth thirsts, drinking long

  Deep from the fount of love, whence out there slips

  An eager purple tongue,

  Sweet as the taste of summer song

  From thrush’s tender throat, a tongue that tires

  My thirsty lips with its insatiate fires,

  While swart limbs soft and strong

  Grip my hot head, while thy lips kiss away

  With blood and foam the life from him thou wouldst not slay.

  LA JUIVE

  Rose dotted with grey stars the bed

  Where my fair Jewess lay and smiled:

  Her breasts were full, her eyes were red,

  Her lips with God unreconciled.

  In wanton disarray, her hair

  Streamed jetty black – Ah! God, how fair!

  The quilt had gold embroidery,

  About the room were furs and silk:

  Her eyes were full of devilry,

  Her finger-tips were soft as milk:

  Above the bed a crest was set,

  A gold and sapphire coronet.

  She was of noble birth, and – best –

  A Jewess; her bad lips enticed

  My lips to taste; I held her breast

  Fresh from the crucifying Christ;

  It seemed her thighs were hot with blood

  Sucked from the bastard Son of God.

  I saw his broken body hang

  Sweating and bleeding on the cross;

  I heard his curses champ and clang;

  I spat upon his reeking corse;

  I licked the spear; my feet were shod

  With iron as I kicked my God.

  Such frightful fancies dim my eyes –

  I can remember how his side

  Lay open for a lover’s prize –

  I violate the Crucified!

  Hell shrieks with impious laugh; they sing

  A mad lewd chant; Hell hails me king!

  So runs my dream; but what am I?

  A lover by a Jewess’ bed,

  A lover waiting wistfully

  For his desires to be fed;

  His only lust – a lover’s bliss,

  And with no language but a kiss!

  In her loose lusts I find again

  The memory of that dream gone by;

  Her kisses waken in my brain

  The picture of that infamy,

  The low dark hill, the storm, the star

  That lit my bestial lupanar!

  Her breasts are Golgotha to me!

  Her lips, his dripping hands and feet!

  Her secret-cinctured armoury

  Of pleasures seems – how utter sweet! –

  The gaping spear-wound in his side

  Wherein I smote the Crucified!

  Come, night! dip, shadows! Only let

  One incense-flame burn red and low,

  Regild the golden coronet,

  Gleam on her nude lewd hips, and glow

  On hours of weariless desire,

  A bastard and infernal fire.

  Smite me, my fiend-fair whore, nor spare

  My raging hips, but wake again

  The old desires ere I’m aware,

  Joy more intense from cruel pain:

  They say he hoped his crown to fix

  By his delirious crucifix.

  Yes, spare me not, red-lipped, low browed,

  Large-featured animal I love:

  Prolong the orgie, shriek aloud

  With drunken vehemence above

  All violence more than Corybant

  To our Iacchian God – Absinthe!

  Ah! thy red lips, and its green glint!

  Its wavy splendour, and the dance

  Thy belly weaves, a triple hint

  Of Hell, and Algiers, and France!

  Ah! Judas-love! this flask we’ll drain,

  Kiss hard – and so to bed again!

  NECROPHILIA

  Void of the ecstasies of Art

  It were in life to have lain by thee,

  And felt thy kisses rain on me,

  And the hot beating of thy heart,

  When thy warm sweat should leave me cold,

  And my worn soul find out no bliss

  In the obscenities I kiss,

  And the things shameful that I hold.

  My nostrils sniff the luxury

  Of flesh decaying, bowels torn

  Of festive worms, like Venus, born

  Of entrails foaming like the sea.

  Yea, thou art dead. Thy buttocks now

  Are swan-soft, and thou sweatest not;

  And hast a strange desire begot

  In me, to lick thy bloody brow;

  To gnaw thy hollow cheeks, and pull

  Thy lustful tongue from out it’s sheath;

  To wallow in the bowels of death,

  And rip thy belly, and fill full

  My hands with all putridities;

  To chew thy dainty testicles;

  To revel with the worms in Hell’s

  Delight in such obscenities;

  To pour within thine heart the seed

  Mingled with poisonous discharge

  From a swollen gland, inflamed and large

  With gonorrhoea’s delicious breed;

  To probe thy belly, and to drink

  The godless fluids, and the pool

  Of rank putrescence from the stool

  Thy hanged corpse gave, whose luscious stink

  Excites these songs sublime. The rod

  Gains new desire; dive, howl, cling, suck,

  Rave, shreik, and chew; excite the fuck,

  Hold me, I come! I’m dead! My God!

  ABYSMOS

  This is th’ abyss! Implacable disease

  Springs from the black defilement of that kiss,

  That foul embrace that moulds these agonies.

  This is th’ abyss!

  A serpent was my whore; her hellish hiss,

  Her slaver venoms soul and strength; life flees

  Repugnant from the corpse-caress. Ah, this

  Rots blood and body; see, the liquor’s lees

  I drained, whose pangs are fierce with Syphilis.

  Christ God, damn soul, but quench the pain of these!

  This is th’ abyss!

  * * *

  This is th’ abyss. Behold wherein I lurk

  The lazar-house my mind, wherein do work

  The horrid charnel-priests, whose loathly song

  Sickens my soul, and quells the spirit strong.

  Hell-fire within my heart! and poisoned blood

  Through every vein and artery pours a flood

  Of devilish pain. This is th’ abyss indeed;

  Fears on my mind and pains on body feed,

  Serpents of hell that gnaw my bones, nor quench

  The fires of torture with the sickly stench

  Of many a venomed drug, that clings and cleaves,

  And clutches like a dead man’s hand, and weaves

  Its subtle scheme of agony through me.

  Is God to help a mortal? Or are we

  Caught in Fate’s mesh without a hope to ‘scape?

  Ah! look around! In every darksome shape!

  Fearful, nude Venus grins. Alcyone

  Mocks with her sickening smile. Hill, moor, and lea

  Make me to hate them. Only Clytie there,

  Wild arms thrown wide, an agony of hair

  Streamed fierce behind her, seems to sympathize;

  Through selfish, yet despair in both our eyes

  Gives us a link of love. The darkling room

  Is fearsome; one red light throughout the gloom

  Thrills my void veins with horror. On the couch

  The gruesome hound with sleepy stare doth crouch.

  His red hard eye upon me. Every shelf

  Of noisome books reflects my hideous self!

  Lucky I burnt my picture! Snakes on floor

  Writhe, lick my legs, I fear them. By the door

  Yon horrid panther snarls. His eye inspires

  Fresh torments, to invade my soul with fires

  Too angry to assuage, and in its glass

  I see myself. I hate myself, alas!

  More than all these. I cannot rid me of

  Myself, my hates, my tortures, or my love;

  My golden-haired Greek goddess, who divines

  In me a god, who cannot read the lines

  Of anguish on my forehead, neither scent

  The poison of breast, blood, and excrement!

  I gnash my teeth in impotent despair

  That I may never hold her heavenly hair

  Again, nor bite her lips, as once my teeth

  Met in her cheek, to cull a rosy wreath

  Of blood upon it, nor assuage the pangs

  Of love with hardy limbs, and dolorous fangs,

  And sweating body, crimsoning with gore,

  As her mad mouth devoured me. Never more

  Though years decay! With them my blood decays,

  My bones rot inwardly, the venomed days

  Sink shaft on shaft of agony, the years

  Bring new distortions, miseries, and fears;

  New torture to my spirit, and forgot

  Of God, and health, and loveliness, I rot.

  Outward, my face and breast have leprous sores;

  Inward, my filthy blood; its poison pours

  Corruption through me. In the eyes of man

  I am contemned, the haughty one. God’s fan

  Is eager on my threshing/floor; his rod

  Smites no vain stroke. Oh, how I curse thee, God!

  What is my aid? But yet to Satan’s power

  I lend my utmost vigour for an hour,

  To wrest Thy damned throne from out thy hands!

  My aid? How shall I burst thy bitter bands,

  Strike off thy shackles, from thy fetters break,

  I, whom Thy name appals, whose vitals quake

  At the dim thought of Thee? Have mercy, Christ!

  Who suffered on the cross, who sacrificed

  Thy heaven for three hours. Ah! pity me,

  For years, not hours, condemned to agony

  Thrice Thine! Have pity, hear me, virgin queen,

  Whose pangs of childbirth were seven times more keen

  Than all, since love and memory of joy

  Thou hadst not, but the fear of shame to cloy

  Even the hope of motherhood. But I,

  Cut off from love and joy; its memory

  One black hell of distorted pain; my shame

  More horrid than that first unholy flame,

  That burnt my blood, and flung me in her arms,

  Whose filthy kisses and thrice loathly charms,

  Her purple lips, her acrid redolence,

  Her black lewd limbs, her breasts, whose foul incense

  Smoked like hell’s mouth though pendulous they hung,

  Her devilish black belly, and her tongue

  Sharp as a tiger’s tooth, lured on my lust.

  Oh! God in heaven! It is turned to dust

  And dung and corpse-flesh! I can see even here

  (For changeful spectres haunt me) how a tear

  Of blood stood on my breast at her first bite:

  And day grew dusk, and twilight turned to night,

  And her vast coffin stood at hand. And there

  Naked as hell, legs wide flung out in the air,

  She lay and called me ‘Satan’. As I came,

  Feeling a Satan, such a deathly flame

  Of lust of loathliness was kindled here

  In my bad blood, I leapt upon the bier,

  And consummated all the strange desire

  That burnt and branded all my blood with fire,

  Buried my teeth and limbs in swarthy flesh,

  While blood and sweat begat desire afresh,

  And yet twelve times the black womb vomited,

  And we lay there chilled bitterly, and dead,

  While thy lewd minions covered with a pall

  Our prostrate bodies, and with musical

  Loud voices raised the chant of funeral,

  Turned to fierce blasphemies, and words obscene.

  Nine hours we lay as dead, and then my queen

  Writhed in my arms again, and blood leapt up

  To our fresh kisses to fill full the cup

  Of horror to the brim. Again as dead

  Were we borne forth, and then – Can I forget?

  I gripped thy glossy throat. My fingers met

  Crushing through the skin and muscle, nerve and vein,

  And in that supreme agony of pain

  I drained myself of lust! That final clasp

  Was consummated in thy dying gasp!

  The frightful struggle ended; I leapt high,

  Caught sword, bared breast, and hurled myself to die,

  But thy mad slaves attacked me. These I slew

  – So I half guess – the next thing my soul knew,

  I was alone and naked in my bed.

  The sword, snapped, on the floor, with hateful red

  Blotches of blood, and clots of bloody hair

  On its infernal steel. And unaware

  Of thy last gift I slept. I have it now,

  Thy gift from Hell’s door! Would to God somehow

  I had thee once alive – to slay again! –

  Ah! Who crawls in upon me like a vain

  Damned ghost? Ugh! blotchy spectre! Fiend, aroint!

  Ah Christ, he creeps toward me ; evert joint

  Quivers with passion; he will tear my eyes!

  Away! more liquor! come, green cockatrice!

  Come, filthy draught of fire! green dancing fiend

  On serpent’s vomit and whore’s spittle weaned,

  Fire my fierce brain! resolve my rotted heart!

  Fill me with drunkenness! How changed thou art,

  Body, from that these women loved so well!

  God! will they still lust after me in Hell?

  But this is Hell! Aha! if you were me,

  Blind staring cripple yonder, you should see

  Whether I lie! A cripple are you then?

  Look upon me, the leper among men,

  The corpse amoung the living! Intercede,

  Good pitying pitiable Christ! My need

  Is viler than my sins! Old sins, you tire!

  Come, some new devilry to reinspire

  My lips with frenzied laughter! Vain, ah, vain!

  Th’ extreme of pleasure and the worst of pain,

  I have tasted all. No more, all hope must end –

  Hope! Damn that word! It mocks me like that friend