Page:Betelguese, a trip through hell.djvu/80

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72
BETELGUESE

More dooms that prayers nor sighs can break—

Leer at each thought to Fancy's flight;

And to the dais whereunder sit

A demon-quire that Circe taught,

Songs that echo to the isles in lake

And valley deep, ravage the night

Until Idols pall at the scene.

And stationed Mounts toward the West

Whose bones portray a ghastly lust;

And skulls that glare at the soulless night,

Point, weeping, where the foam-waves dream:

All battle-wrecks and imps haste forth

Unto the phosphorescent dust

And pyramidal shoals of light.


The poisons that the geysers spit

To apes, where Sin in splendor reigns;

And cavern'd shapes that shadows hide

Behind tapers, where snarling Doom

Glares at Set's tomb, where devils sit,

Make vague signs to the weird flames,