II
Save death alone! I see no happy end,
No happy end for this divine beginning.
Child! let us front a fate too ill to mend,
Take joy in suffering for the sake of sinning.
Ay! from your lips I pluck the purple seed
Of that pomegranate sleek Persephone
Tasted in hell; the irrevocable deed
I do, and it is done. Naught else could be
For us, the chosen of so severe a god
To act so high a tragedy, the elect
To suffer so, and so rejoice, the rod
And scourge of our own shame, the gilt and decked
Oxen that go to our own sacrifice
At our own consecrated shrine of vice.
No happy end for this divine beginning.
Child! let us front a fate too ill to mend,
Take joy in suffering for the sake of sinning.
Ay! from your lips I pluck the purple seed
Of that pomegranate sleek Persephone
Tasted in hell; the irrevocable deed
I do, and it is done. Naught else could be
For us, the chosen of so severe a god
To act so high a tragedy, the elect
To suffer so, and so rejoice, the rod
And scourge of our own shame, the gilt and decked
Oxen that go to our own sacrifice
At our own consecrated shrine of vice.
— 4 —
