I
Look! Look! upon the tripod through the smoke
Of slain things kindled, and fine frankincense.
Look—deep beyond the phantoms these evoke
Are sightless halls where spirit stifles sense.
There do I open the old book of Fate
Wherein They pictured my delight and me
Flushed with the dawn of rapture laureate
And leaping with the laughter of ecstacy.
Mine eyes grow aged with that hieroglyph
Of doom that I have sought: the fatal end.
That which is written is written, even if
Great Zeus himself—great Zeus!—were to befriend.
Even in the spring of the first floral kiss:
"No happy end the gods have given for this".
Of slain things kindled, and fine frankincense.
Look—deep beyond the phantoms these evoke
Are sightless halls where spirit stifles sense.
There do I open the old book of Fate
Wherein They pictured my delight and me
Flushed with the dawn of rapture laureate
And leaping with the laughter of ecstacy.
Mine eyes grow aged with that hieroglyph
Of doom that I have sought: the fatal end.
That which is written is written, even if
Great Zeus himself—great Zeus!—were to befriend.
Even in the spring of the first floral kiss:
"No happy end the gods have given for this".
— 3 —
