I SAW A SNAKE-GIRT EMBRYON
I saw a snake-girt embryon, crowned and dumb,
Its rigid finger, pointed towards the sky;
From whence the fiery breath of life must come,
That kindles unborn lip and rayless eye.
I saw a demon beagle dark as night,
A shadowy maiden, hounding through the air;
And as she fled she shrieked with wild affright,
And, Mœnad-like, behind her streamed her hair.
The bridal couch of sad Proserpina
In grim Hephæstus’ realm mine eyes beheld;
The ravished bride bewailed her home afar—
Her temples bound with Stygian asphodel.
I saw the vast Plutonian gardens, where
That cursed pomegranate shed its deadly bloom,
Whose fatal fruitage, banned from upper air
Sad Ceres’ daughter till the seventh moon.
I saw the Pleiads, in their skyey tent,
Bemoan their starry sister, dead and cold;
His bow against her fierce Orion bent—
Orion zoned with belt of fretted gold.
I saw the Avengers with viperean hair
Above the palace roofs at Argos fly;
The matricide Orestes shuddered there,
Obscene with matted locks and haggard eye.
I saw the loaded tables of the Sun,
By ancient Nilus’ orbëd fountains spread;
Where wont of old the happy gods to come,
Twelve days by long-lived Ethiops richly fed.
Phantoms of air exhaled by dark madjoon,
And visionary fabrics dim and vast;
Like vapors gliding o’er the autumnal moon,
Before imagination’s eye they passed.