So you have drugged me with this poisoned wine
Because I never loved you; trees writhe grim
Around us and their mockery makes malign
Your gestures and the ardour of each limb
I have seen naked, I have known divine;
Your eyes, fatal as death's, where I see swim
Dead ghosts of spent desires. O sorrows nine
That are mine own! Am I not vowed to Him
Who stalks there in the shadow of that pine,
Now that the virginless Moon is vestal, dim,
As Hades? Ah! that mirror that is thine,
That sees the Lampads dip over the rim
Of the round world; mirror, nay, no more mine,
Than to his Hell the hell-born Teraphim.
Hell-born you are not, daughter of some Hell
Wherein forever burns the infernal fire,
For in your body is the inevitable
Sting of the Serpent made of the Snake's desire,
The desire he had of Lilith, whose strange spell
Woven around him made his breath respire
The odours of no death, not damnable,
But deadly when the blood that's mixed with mire
Propagates evil. You the insensible
Beast of the Wilderness where root and briar
Mix, and the ways thereof no man can tell,
Jungles and forests, lion's lust and ire;
Now, what shall leap on me from a sunken well?
You, you, that glitter in your golden wire!
The Night I know shall nestle in your hair
And the night's birds shall bite you furiously,
And even were your body thin and bare
As when you loved me most, when all the Sea
Of passion surged across us and the air
Shot wicked lightnings, hell's, ironically,
And hurled dead leaves upon us: we were aware
Of certain subtle Loves that daintily
Slid over grasses greener than the vair
You women wear, and eyed us mockingly
Seeing how mad our love was laughed a rare
Laughter that shook our senses as you and me
Lay linked together and your hair my hair
Held fast. They passed, leaving us nakedly
As love must: be, and without any Shame
We gazed upon each other in surprise.
These, having passed, I called you by your name:
Lamia! And all the malice in your eyes
Darkened with a veritable flame
The flame the Sun has when he crucifies
Himself only, in you, always the same
Irresistible irritation that denies
Nothing, gives all things, playing Sin's own game
Before the horror of the naked skies
That shuddered on us, knew the thing that came.
And when the night was over, then we rose
And came upon a wicked piece of Earth.
Thessalian witches, writhing in strange throes,
With convulsed limbs, with some Satanic mirth
Evoked the Demons. Ah, the venomous dose
Of poison in their eyes and in their girth!
Nay, the snake only his own venom knows;
I think that then you had a second birth.
That gave you the desire to poison me
That grew in you just then and quickened so,
Till, knowing your guilt, your evil Sorcery
Changed on itself; and I that was your Foe
Before my wrath changed to love and came to be
That thing of things you know, the thing I know,
Death-doomed; yea, to be severed angrily
From life and lust and in the dust bow low
This haughty head; you, very suddenly
Tried to destroy the poison; yea, by slow
Soft processes, to avert the ignominy
Of your incarnate spirit. Lo, now, lo,
Now that I die, what hell-spume of the sea
The wind of your breath makes evil about me, so
As your arms hold me? I see Death's sinister face
Between the window-panes, and I must go.
There is a stirring in the wind that wakes
Out of their sleep the beasts that love the wood.
Lo, this avenging Spirit of mine, that slakes
Its thirst upon the famishing multitude
Your breath must famish on! O snake of snakes,
By all the agony of the Holy Rood
That for our sakes its mortal coil forsakes,
Here's my last kiss: You have slain my spirit's blood!
