10 Thou art not worth an obol in the agora; yet Thou art not to be bought at the ransom of the whole Universe.
11 Thou art like a beautiful Nubian slave leaning her naked purple against the green pillars of marble that are above the bath.
12 Wine jets from her black nipples.
13 I drank wine awhile agone in the house of Pertinax. The cup-boy favoured me, and gave me of the right sweet Chian.
14 There was a Doric boy, skilled in feats of strength, an athlete. The full moon fled away angrily down the wrack. Ah! but we laughed.
15 I was pernicious drunk, O my God! Yet Pertinax brought me to the bridal.
16 I had a crown of thorns for all my dower.
17 Thou art like a goat's horn from Astor, O Thou God of mine, gnarl'd and crook'd and devilish strong.
18 Colder than all the ice of all the glaciers of the Naked Mountain was the wine it poured for me.
19 A wild country and a waning moon Clouds scudding over the sky. A circuit of pines, and of tall yews beyond. Thou in the midst!
20 O all ye toads and cats, rejoice! Ye slimy things, come hither!
21 Dance, dance to the Lord our God!
22 He is he! He is he! He is he!
23 Why should I go on?
24 Why? Why? comes the sudden cackle of a million imps of hell.
25 And the laughter runs.
26 But sickens not the Universe; but shakes not the stars.
27 God! how I love Thee!
28 I am walking in an asylum; all the men and women about me are insane.
29 Oh madness! madness! madness! desirable art thou!
30 But I love Thee, O God!
31 These men and women rave and howl; they froth out folly.
32 I begin to be afraid. I have no check; I am alone. Alone. Alone.
33 Think, O God, how I am happy in Thy love.
34 O marble Pan! O false leering face! I love Thy dark kisses, bloody and stinking! O marble Pan! Thy kisses are like sunlight on the blue Aegean; their blood is the blood of the sunset over Athens; their stink is like a garden of Roses of Macedonia.
35 I dreamt of sunset and roses and vines; Thou wast there, O my God, Thou didst habit Thyself as an Athenian courtesan, and I loved Thee.
36 Thou art no dream, O Thou too beautiful alike for sleep and waking!
37 I disperse the insane folk of the earth; I walk alone with my little puppets in the garden.
38 I am Gargantuan great; yon galaxy is but the smoke-ring of mine incense.
39 Burn Thou strange herbs, O God!
40 Brew me a magic liquor, boys, with your glances!
41 The very soul is drunken.
42 Thou art drunken, O my God, upon my kisses.
43 The Universe reels; Thou hast looked upon it.
44 Twice, and all is done.
45 Come, O my God, and let us embrace!
46 Lazily, hungrily, ardently, patiently; so will I work.
47 There shall be an End.
48 O God! O God!
49 I am a fool to love Thee; Thou art cruel, Thou withholdest Thyself.
50 Come to me now! I love Thee! I love Thee!
51 O my darling, my darling - Kiss me! Kiss me! Ah! but again.
52 Sleep, take me! Death, take me! This life is too full; it pains, it slays, it suffices.
53 Let me go back into the world; yea, back into the world.
III
1 I was the priest of Ammon-Ra in the temple of Ammon-Ra at Thebai.
2 But Bacchus came singing with his troops of vine-clad girls, of girls in dark mantles; and Bacchus in the midst like a fawn!
3 God! how I ran out in my rage and scattered the chorus!
4 But in my temple stood Bacchus as the priest of Ammon-Ra.
5 Therefore I went wildly with the girls into Abyssinia; and there we abode and rejoiced.
6 Exceedingly; yea, in good sooth!
7 I will eat the ripe and the unripe fruit for the glory of Bacchus.
8 Terraces of ilex, and tiers of onyx and opal and sardonyx leading up to the cool green porch of malachite.
9 Within is a crystal shell, shaped like an oyster - O glory of Priapus! O beatitude of the Great Goddess!
10 Therein is a pearl.
11 O Pearl! thou hast come from the majesty of dread Ammon-Ra.
12 Then I the priest beheld a steady glitter in the heart of the pearl.
13 So bright we could not look! But behold! a blood-red rose upon a rood of glowing gold!
14 So I adored the God. Bacchus! thou art the lover of my God!
15 I who was priest of Ammon-Ra, who saw the Nile flow by for many moons, for many, many moons, am the young fawn of the grey land.
16 I will set up my dance in your conventicles, and my secret loves shall be sweet among you.
17 Thou shalt have a lover among the lords of the grey land.
18 This shall he bring unto thee, without which all is in vain; a man's life spilt for thy love upon My Altars.
19 Amen.
20 Let it be soon, O God, my God! I ache for Thee, I wander very lonely among the mad folk, in the grey land of desolation.
21 Thou shalt set up the abominable lonely Thing of wickedness. Oh joy! to lay that corner-stone!
22 It shall stand erect upon the high mountain; only my God shall commune with it.
23 I will build it of a single ruby; it shall be seen from afar off.
24 Come! let us irritate the vessels of the earth: they shall distil strange wine.
25 It grows under my hand: it shall cover the whole heaven.
26 Thou art behind me: I scream with a mad joy.
27 Then said Ithuriel the strong; let Us also worship this invisible marvel!
28 So did they, and the archangels swept over the heaven.
29 Strange and mystic, like a yellow priest invoking mighty flights of great grey birds from the North, so do I stand and invoke Thee!
30 Let them obscure not the sun with their wings and their clamour!
31 Take away form and its following!
32 I am still.
33 Thou art like an osprey among the rice, I am the great red pelican in the sunset waters.
34 I am like a black eunuch; and Thou art the scimitar. I smite off the head of the light one, the breaker of bread and salt.
35 Yea! I smite - and the blood makes as it were a sunset on the lapis lazuli of the King's Bedchamber.
36 I smite! The whole world is broken up into a mighty wind, and a voice cries aloud in a tongue that men cannot speak.
37 I know that awful sound of primal joy; let us follow on the wings of the gale even unto the holy house of Hathor; let us offer the five jewels of the cow upon her altar!
38 Again the inhuman voice!
39 I