When life’s a hideous thing at best,
And better rid!”
And better rid!”
He beat his breast:
“O horror! horror! I heard a cry,
‘For that one slain, their host must die!
Be merciless! Be to their ease
Colossal winged Eumenides!
Blind and convulse, torment, assault,
Redden the dayspring’s golden vault,
So they remember!’ This was their token:
Beautiful bodies, white and broken,
Fauns that still held the cup of drouth
Pressed wearily pale mouth to mouth,
Bacchant and Satyr, chill in death,
The Mænads moaning a last breath,
Their spears with arbute-blossoms pied,
Plunged in each stark and bleeding side;
But those that fled wailed as the leaves
Some vast autumnal spirit grieves,
When in the nadir, sick with light,
A ponderous wind proclaims the night....
I only—I, whom none forgave,
They buried living in a grave,
Swathed me in silver talc and thrust,
Saying, ‘Here ends thy frozen lust!
Though thou shouldst in the mystic night
Awaken, O Hermaphrodite,
“O horror! horror! I heard a cry,
‘For that one slain, their host must die!
Be merciless! Be to their ease
Colossal winged Eumenides!
Blind and convulse, torment, assault,
Redden the dayspring’s golden vault,
So they remember!’ This was their token:
Beautiful bodies, white and broken,
Fauns that still held the cup of drouth
Pressed wearily pale mouth to mouth,
Bacchant and Satyr, chill in death,
The Mænads moaning a last breath,
Their spears with arbute-blossoms pied,
Plunged in each stark and bleeding side;
But those that fled wailed as the leaves
Some vast autumnal spirit grieves,
When in the nadir, sick with light,
A ponderous wind proclaims the night....
I only—I, whom none forgave,
They buried living in a grave,
Swathed me in silver talc and thrust,
Saying, ‘Here ends thy frozen lust!
Though thou shouldst in the mystic night
Awaken, O Hermaphrodite,
21
