Clouds without Water/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 beFor 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 deckedOxen that go to our own sacrifice At our own consecrated shrine of vice.
III
Over the desert ocean of distress We reach pale eager hands that quiver and bleed With life of these our hearts that surge and stress In agony of the mediated deed.For in the little coppice by the gate Wherein I drew you shy and sly, and kised Your lips, your hushed "I love you" smooth and straight Sweeping to wrap us in the glittering mistOf hell that holds us—even there I heard The lacerating laugh of fate ring out, The dog-faced god pronounce the mantic word, And saw the avengers gather round aboutOur love. The Mairae neither break nor bend; The Erinyes hunt us to—no happy end.
IV
Our love is like a glittering sabre bloodied With lives of me; 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 throngThat 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 scoreOur daggers carve with poesy sublime Upon the roof tree of despair and crime!
V
As we read Love and Death in either's eyes, We see the cool mild splendour of the dawn Damned by some tragic throw of murderous dice To slash like lightning over lea and lawnJagged and horrible across the curtain Of heaven, writing ruin, ruin—we see Our certain joy marred with a doubly certain Soul-shattering anguish.—Bah! To you and meSuch loathing, such despair are little things. We are afloat on the flood-tide of lust— A lust more spiritual than life, that stings Till death and hell dissolve i' the aftergust.So? But the Gods avert their faces, bend Their holy brows, and see—no happy end.
VI
Thus shall men write upon our cenotaphs: "Traitor and lecher! murderess and whore!" The rat-faced god that lurks in heaven laughs; There is rejoicing on the immortal shore.The angels deem us hurled from the above, Burnt out of bliss, blasted from sense and thought, Barred from the beauties of celestial love And branded with the annihilating Naught.O! pallid triumph! empty victory! When we sit smiling on the infernal thrones Starred with our utmost gems of infamy, Builded with tears, and cushioned with the groansOf these the victims of our joys immense— Child! I aspire to that bad eminence!
VII
Hell hath no queen! But, o thou red mouth curving In kisses that bring blood, shall I be alone? What of the accomplice of these deeds unswerving? Will not your dead hot hisses match mine own?As here your ardours brand me bone and marrow Biting like fire and poison in my veins, Shall you not there still ply your nameless harrow. Mingle a cup from those our common painsTo intoxicate us with an extreme pleasure Keener than life's, more dolorous than death's Till these infernal blisses pass the measure Of heaven's imagined by the tremulous breathsOf silly saints and silly sinners, swaying From scraps of blasphemy to scraps of praying?
VIII
You love me! trite and idle word to darken (With all its glow) the splendour of our sun! No soul of heaven or hell may hearken The unbearable device that we have done.Nor may Justine nor Borgia understand Nor Messalina nor Maria guess The infernal chorus swelling darkly grand That echoed us our everlasting 'Yes!'Nor shall the Gods perceive to damn or praise The deed that shakes their essence into dust, Disrupts their dreams, divides their dreary days. Supreme, abominable, rides our lustArmed in the panoply of brazen youth And strength, since, if we are Hell's, Hell's worm is Truth.
IX
We are still young enough to take delight In wickedness for wickedness' sole sake. Eve did not fall because she knew aright The fruit an apple, but the snake a snake.Nor shall we sink among the foolish throng That seek an end, but rise among the few Who do the strong thing because they are strong And care not why they do, so that they do.Therefore we wear our dread iniquity Even as an aureole, therefore we attain Measureless heights of nameless ecstasy, Measureless depths of unimagined painMingled in one initiating kiss That those dissolve in the athanor of this.
X
We tread of earth in our divine disdain And crush its blood out into purple wine, Staining our feet with hot and amorous stain, The foam involving all the sensual shrineOf love whose godhead dwells upon your mouth Wherein the kisses clustering overflow With brimming ardour of the new sin's growth Till round us all the poisonous blossoms blow,And all the cruel things and hideous forms Of night awake and revel in our revel, While in us rage the devastating storms Whose dam is Luxury and their sire the devil...It is well seen, however things intend, The Gods have given for this—no happy end.
XI
Crown me with poppy and hibiscus! crown These brows with nightshade, monkshood and vervain! Let us anoint us with the unguents brown That waft our wizard bodies to the plainWhere in the circle of unholy stones The unconsecrated Sabbath is at height; Where the grim goat rattling his skulls and bones Makes music that dissolves the dusk of nightInto a ruddy fervour from the abyss Such as I see (when cunning can surprise) Our Argus foe and give us leave to kiss Within your deep, your damned, your darling eyes.Ay! to the Sabbath where the crowned worm Exults, with twisted yard and slime-cold sperm.
XII
There gods descend; there devils rise. We dance, Dance to the madness of the waning moon, Write centuries of murder in a glace, 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 diademFor that unutterable deed that hurled Us, flaming thunderbolts! against the world.
XIII
There needs not ask the obscure oracle Whereto these dire imaginations tend. We read this sigil in the dust of Hell: "The Gods have given for this no happy end."What end should we desire, who grasp the gain We have despoiled from everlasting time, Who gather sunshine from the iciest rain And turn the dullest prose to rhythm and rime?Think you we cannot warm our hands and laugh Even at the fire that scatheth adamant? Think you we shall not knead the utmost chaff Into a bread worth Heaven's high sacramentAnd from the bitter dregs of Hell's own wine Distil a liquor utterly divine?
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 a 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 fangOf the undying worm our love, fast wed Unto—no happy end. Behold! I have said.