"this curious cat
Lies crouching on the Chinese mat with eyes of satin rimmed with gold."
Here we have in a very few words an exact picture of this "exquisite grotesque half-woman and half-animal," whom, after the manner of Edgar Allan Poe with his raven, he proceeds to apostrophise—
"Oh tell me" [he begins] "were you standing by when Isis to Osiris knelt?
And did you watch the Egyptian melt her union for Antony?"
and plies her with many questions of similar nature. Presently he adjures her—
"Lift up your large black satin eyes which are like cushions where one sinks!
Fawn at my feet, Sphinx! and sing me all your memories."
This idea of comparing the velvet depths of the eyes to "cushions where one sinks" is quaint and original, though distinctly decadent, nor is the note of the macabre wanting, as—
"When through the purple corridors the screaming scarlet Ibis flew
In terror, and a horrid dew dripped from the moaning mandragores."
There is a wonderful use of contrast in the introduction of sweating mandragores in connection with the purple of the corridors and the scarlet plumage of the Ibis. How daring, likewise, the grotesque note introduced as he recites the catalogue of her possible lovers and asks—
"Did giant Lizards come and couch before you on the reedy banks?
Did Gryphons with great metal flanks leap on you in your trampled couch?
Did monstrous hippopotami come sidling towards you in the mist?
Did gilt-scaled dragons writhe and twist with passion as you passed them by?"
The speaker will find out the secret of her amours. There is nothing too bizarre, too monstrous to include in the list.