Ebony and Crystal/Love Malevolent

by Clark Ashton Smith

LOVE MALEVOLENT

I fain would love thee, but thy lips are fedWith poison-honey, hivèd in a skull;They seem like scarlet poppies, beautifulFor delving roots, deep-clenchèd in the dead.

Thine eyes are coloured like the nightshade-flow'r.***Blent in the opiate perfume of thy breathAre dreams, and purple sleep, and scented deathFor him that is thy lover for an hour.

Mandragora, within the graveyard grown,Hath given thee its carnal root to eat,And vipers, born and nurstled in a tomb,

From fawning mouths drip venom at thy feet;Yet from thy lethal lips and thine alone,Love would I drink, as dew from poison-bloom.