They say that I am mad.
I worship the Abhorred
And O the ways I had
Of banishing the Lord!
I hate the passing fashion
But not the moving crowds;
If Satan gives me passion
I wander with the clouds.
Often at night alone
Before the sunset bars
I see upon his throne
The Monarch of the Stars.
The hot noon bites me harder,
Midnight sheds on me blisses.
She comes, to fan my ardour,
She kills me with her kisses.
Night passes into day,
We the night watches keep;
When on our bed we lay
My dear began to weep,
And then she burst out sobbing:
"My dear, when we are dead.
Yea, when our nerves are throbbing,
I shall find the old kisses shed
Upon my serpent-mouth.
Nay, what is death to us?
Madness and sadness, youth.
Sin's garden ruinous.
Warm winds upon us blowing,
Our lips upon the flowers,
The sins our sins were sowing
Pass with the eternal hours."
So did the dear lips move
As I leaned over her,
She, she, my only love,
I felt her pulses stir.
We like two riven fires
Did suddenly possess,
She, all of my desires,
And I, her loveliness.
Then did our nights begin
Insidiously to mesh
Our flesh that feels the sin
Transfixing flesh to flesh.
Our souls met in derision,
Our bodies clave asunder—
Mine was the rarer vision,
Hers was the rarer wonder.
They say that I am mad;
You never said that thing:
God knows the ways we had
In our nerve-shuddering.
That shudder that ran through you!
Hell's madness in mine eyes!
God knows, you know, I slew you,
"Where the earth in anguish cries.
On the wind's wings up to Heaven
After the dawn I rise,
Then downwards I am driven
By clouds that storm the sides.
I seek for her where the scowling
Fiends dive deep down in a well:
On the wings of madness howling
I plunge and I find not Hell,
