Part 7 (1/2)

Obsession

Great forests, you alarm me like a mighty fane; Like organ-tones you roar, and in our hearts of stone, Where ancient sobs vibrate, O halls of endless pain!

The answering echoes of your ”De Profundis” moan.

I hate thee, Ocean! hate thy tumults and thy throbs, My spirit finds them in himself. This bitter glee Of vanquished mortals, full of insults and of sobs, I hear it in the mighteous laughter of the sea.

O starless night! thy loveliness my soul inhales, Without those starry rays which speak a language known, For I desire the dark, the naked and the lone.

But e'en those darknesses themselves to me are veils, Where live--and, by the millions 'neath my eyelids prance, Long, long departed Beings with familiar glance.

Magnetic Horror

”Beneath this sky, so livid and strange, Tormented like thy destiny, What thoughts within thy spirit range Themselves?--O libertine reply.”

--With vain desires, for ever torn Towards the uncertain, and the vast, And yet, like Ovid--I'll not mourn-- Who from his Roman Heaven was cast.

O heavens, turbulent as the streams, In you I mirror forth my pride!

Your clouds, which clad in mourning, glide,

Are the hea.r.s.es of my dreams, And in your illusion lies the h.e.l.l, Wherein my heart delights to dwell.

The Lid

Where'er he may rove, upon sea or on land, 'Neath a fiery sky or a pallid sun, Be he Christian or one of Cythera's band, Opulent Croesus or beggar--'tis one,

Whether citizen, peasant or vagabond he, Be his little brain active or dull. Everywhere, Man feels the terror of mystery, And looks upon high with a glance full of fear.

The Heaven above, that oppressive wall; A ceiling lit up in some lewd music hall, Where the actors step forth on a blood-red soil;

The eremite's hope, and the dread of the sot, The Sky; that black lid of a mighty pot, Where, vast and minute, human Races boil.

Bertha's Eyes

The loveliest eyes you can scorn with your wondrous glow: O! beautiful childish eyes there abounds in your light, A something unspeakably tender and good as the night: O! eyes! over me your enchanting darkness let flow.

Large eyes of my child! O Arcana profoundly adored!