"The slow slug; the grasshopper that sings and laughs and drinks
(Winter comes, he folds his slender bones without a murmur);"
wasp and hornet, toad and newt, spider and snake,
"They throw off their gorgeous raiment; they rejoice with loud jubilee
Around the winepresses of Luvah, naked and drunk with wine.
There is the nettle that stings with soft down; and there
The indignant thistle whose bitterness is bred in his milk;
Who feeds on contempt of his neighbour; there all the idle weeds
That creep around the obscure places show their various limbs
Naked in all their beauty, dancing round the winepresses.
But in the winepresses the human grapes sing not nor dance,
They howl and writhe in shoals of torment, in fierce flames consuming;"
tortured for the cruel joy and deadly sport of Luvah's sons and daughters;
"They dance around the dying and they drink the howl and groan;
They catch the shrieks in cups of gold, they hand them one to another;
These are the sports of love, and these the sweet delights of amorous play;
Tears of the grape, the death-sweat of the cluster; the last sigh
Of the mild youth who listens to the luring songs of Luvah."
Take also this from the speech of Time to his reapers.
"You must bind the sheaves not by nations or families,
You shall bind them in three classes; according to their classes
So shall you bind them, separating what has been mixed
Since men began to be woven into nations. * *
* * * The Elect is one class; you
Shall bind them separate; they cannot believe in eternal life
Except by miracle and a new birth. The other two classes,
The Reprobate[1] who never cease to believe, and the Redeemed
Who live in doubts and fears, perpetually tormented by the Elect,
These you shall bind in a twin bundle for the consummation."
The constellations that rise in immortal order, that keep their course upon mountain and valley, with sound of harp
- ↑ That is of course the reprobate according to theology, such as the heretical prophet himself: the class of men upon which is laid the burden of the sins of the elect, as Satan's upon Rintrah in the myth.
