Ebony and Crystal/The Ghoul and the Seraph
THE GHOUL AND THE SERAPH
Scene: A cemetary, by moonlight. The Ghoul emerges fromthe shade of a cypress, and sings.
THE SONGHo, ho, the Pest is on the wing!Ha, ha, the sweet and crimson foamUpon the lips of churl and king!No worm but hath a feastful home:Ha, ha, the Pest is on the wing!
Ho, ho, his kiss incarnadinesThe brows of maiden, queen and whore!The nun to him her cheek resigns;Wan lips were never kissed beforeHis ancient kiss incarnadines.
Good cheer to thee, white worm of death!The priest within the brothel dies,The bawd hath sickened from his breath!In grave half-dug the digger lies:Good cheer to thee, white worm of death!
The Seraph appears from among the trees, half-walking, half-flying with wings whose iris the moonlight has rendered faint,and pauses abruptly at sight of the Ghoul.
THE SERAPHWhat gardener in crudded fields of hell,Or scullion of the Devil's house, art thou—To whom the filth of Malebolge clings,And reek of horrid refuse? Thou art gnurledAnd black as any Kobold from the minesWhere demons delve for orichalch and steelTo forge the racks of Satan! On thy face, Detestable and evil as might hauntThe last delirium of a dying hag,Or necromancer's madness, fall thy locks,Like sodden reeds that trail in AcheronFrom shores of night and horror! And thy hands,Like roots of cypresses uptorn in stormThat still retain their grisly provender,Make the glad wine and manna of the skiesTurn to a qualmish sickness in my veins!
THE GHOULAnd who art thou?—Some white-faced fool of God,With wings that emulate the giddy bird,And bloodless mouth forever filled with psalms.In lieu of honest victuals!***Askest thouMy name? I am the Ghoul Necromalor:In new-made graves I delve for sustenance,As Man within his turnip-fields: I takeFor table the uprooted slab, that bearsThe words, "In Pace;" black and curdled bloodOf cadavers is all my cupless wine—Slow-drunken, as the dainty vampire drinks.From pulses oped in never-ending sleep.
THE SERAPHO! foulness born as of the ninefold curseOf dragon-mouthed Apollyon, plumed with darts,And armed with horns of incandescent bronze!O, dark as Satan's nightmare, or the fruitOf Belial's rape on hell's black hippogriff!***What knowest THOU of Paradise, where growThe gardens of the manna-laden myrrh,And lotos never known to Ulysses,Whose fruit provides our long and sateless banquet?Where boundless fields, unfurrowed and unsown,Supply for God's own appanage their foisonOf amber-hearted grain, and sesameSweeter than nard the Persian air compounds With frankincense from isles of India?Where flame-leaved forests infinitely teemWith palms of tremulous opal, from whose topAmbrosial honeys fall forevermoreIn rains of nacred light! Where rise and riseTerrace on hyacinthine terrace, hillsHung with the grapes that drip cerulean wine,One draught whereof dissolves eternityIn bliss oblivious and supernal dream!
THE GHOULTo all, the meat their bellies most commend,To all, the according wine: For me, I wot,The cates whereof thou braggest were as windIn halls where men had feasted yesterday,Or furbished bones the full hyena leaves:Tiger and pig have their apportioned glut,Nor lacks the shark his provender; the birdIs nourished with the worm of charnels; man,Or the grey wolf, will slay and eat the bird,Till wolf and man be carrion for the worm.What wouldst thou? As the elfin lily does,Or as the Paphian myrtle, pink with love,I draw me from the unreluctant deadThe rightful meat my belly's law demands.***Eaters of death are all: Life shall not live,Save that its food be death; No atomyIn any star, or heaven's remotest moon,But hath a billion billion times been madeThe food of insatiable life, and foodOf death insatiate: For all is change—Change, that hath wrought the chancre and the rose,And wrought the star, and wrought the sapphire-stone,And lit great altars, and the eyes of lions—Change, that hath made the very gods from slimeDrawn from the pits of Python, and will flingGods and their builded heavens back againTo slime. The fruits of archangelic light Thou braggest of, and grapes of azure wine,Have been the dung of dragons, and the bloodOf toads in Phlegethon; each particleThat is their splendour, clomb in separate ways,Through suns, and worlds, and cycles infinite—Through burning brume of systems unbegun,Or manes of long-haired comets, that have lashedThe night of space to fury and to fire;And in the core of cold and lightless stars,And in immalleable metals deep.Each atomy hath slept, or known the slimeOf Cyclopean oceans turned to airBefore the suns of Ophiuchus rose;And they have known the interstellar night,And they have lain at root of sightless flowr'sIn worlds without a sun, or at the heartOf monstrous-eyed and panting flow'rs of flesh,Or aeon-blooming amaranths of stone;And they have ministered within the brainsOf sages and magicians, and have servedTo swell the pulse of kings or conquerors,And have been privy to the hearts of queens.
The Ghoul turns his back on the Seraph, and moves away singing.
THE SONGO condor, keep thy mountain-ways,Above the long Andean lands!Gier-eagle, guard the eastern sands.Where the forsaken camel strays!Beetle and worm and I will wardThe feastful graves of lout and lord.
O, warm and bright the blood that lies.Upon the wounded lion's trail!Hyena, laugh, and jackal, wailAnd ring him round, who turns and dies! Beetle and worm and I will wardThe feastful graves of lout and lord.
Raven and kestrel, kite and crow,The swart patrol of northern lands,Gather your noisy, bickering bands—The reindeer bleeds upon the snow!Beetle and worm and I will wardThe feastful graves of lout and lord.
Arms of a wanton girl are good,Or hands of harp-player and knight!Breasts of the nun be sweet and white,Sweet is the festive friar's blood!Beetle and worm and I will wardThe feastful graves of lout and lord.