There fungus-tapers gleam like gold
Before a ghoul-king's jeweled throne:
There, too, upon a Temple's arch,
Bivouacs a witch who scans the bed
Of buried kings and queens struck cold
And lifts her voice to splinter'd dome
To stem the brooding Djinnee march,
And with the dusk that meteors split,
She tries the figgum of her lust,
And throws her voice at portals dark,
Past burning pyres, where moaning airs
Call the help of Conjury's script;
And, ere cyphers burn in the dust
The names of new souls in this ark,
The ghosts of the dead prance in pairs.
This is the sphere of Dust and Tomb!
Where Trojans struck with palsied Death
As Satan smote each cavern's fold,
And whistling heat swirl'd Circe around
The coffined slabs of Aeæa's womb,
When kingdoms fought with rasping breath
