THE SUCCUBA
I have dreams where I believe
That a queen of some dim palace,
One, whose name is Genevieve,
Weighs me with her love or malice:
She is dead and yet my bride:
And she glimmers at my side
Offering a crystal chalice
Filled with fire, diamond-dyed.
I have dreams. Ah, would that I
Might forget them!—I remember
How her gaze, all icily
Draws me, like a glowing ember,
Up her castle-stair’s pale-paved
Alabaster, from the waved
Ocean, grayer than November,
Where I linger, soul-enslaved.
Walls of shadow and of night
Lit with casements full of fire,
Somber red or piercing white:
As the wind breathes lower, higher,
Round the towers spirit-things
Whisper, and the haunted strings
Moan of each huge, plangent lyre
Set upon its four chief wings.
In its corridors at tryst
Flame-eyed phantoms meet. Its sparry
Halls are misty amethyst:
Battlemented ’neath the starry
Skies it looms; the strange unknown
Skies where, green as glow-worms, sown,
Gloom the stars; the moon hangs barry
Beryl, low and large and lone....
Can it be a witch is she?
Or a vampire? she, far whiter
Than the spirits of the sea!—
She whose eyes are cold, yet brighter
Than her throat’s pale jewels. Lo!
Flame she is though seeming snow:
And her love lies tighter, tighter
On my heart than utter woe.
Though I dream, it seems I live;
And my heart is sick with sorrow
Of the love that it must give
To her; passion, it must borrow
Of herself, unhallowed, vain;
Then return it her again:
Thus she holds me; and to-morrow
Still will hold with sweetest pain.
In her garden’s moon-white space
Strangest flowers bloom: huge lilies,
Each one with a human face;
Knots of spirit-amaryllis;
Cactus-bulks with pulpy blooms
Gnome-like in the silver glooms;
And dim deeps of daffadillies,
Fay-like, brimming faint perfumes.
But to me their fragrance seems
Poison; and their lambent lustre,
Spun of twilight and of dreams,
Poison; and each pearly cluster
Hides a serpent’s fang. And I,
Looking from an oriel, sigh;
For my soul is fain to muster
Heart to breathe of them and die.