Caressed by crystal dews and light
Beyond the realm of scale and fin,
Incarian Thought flits Fancy wings
To hazards where a crimson urn
Makes scarlet this eternal height
Of sunless suns and reigning sin,--
Flame-decked this plain of warring kings
Where poisoned fumes and beacons burn!
And thro' the hyoids, huge and red,
Past portals black and guidons bright
To onyx lees and opal sands,
The Cyclopean vaults of dwale,
And cavern'd shapes that Typhon bled,
Greet each wand'ring spectre's sight;
Where pixies dance on wind-blown strands,
Lurke gyte incubi in a hall.
Here, then, reigns gyving, batter'd Doom!
Where shadows vague and coffined light,
Spit broths from splinter'd wracks and domes.
Where viscid mists and vulpine cries
Rise from the moat of dungeoned gloom
And rasp the stationed walls of night
Until sequesteréd skulls and bones
Are made to hear the moaning sighs
That some mad Titan, rayed in gold,
Wrests from Damnation's siffling tomb.
And labyrinths of Horror's Home,
'Mid vapours green and aisles unsunned,
Provoke each cursing mattoid's fold
Until the night is changed to noon
By cowled magicians on a dome.
Then wizardry, strange, unsummed,
Reveals each varlet, Figgum's might:
A hemless rabble from the South
That some wild Trojan flayed and curs'd,
Skirr thro' the Cauldron's broken lane
And wing for implex strands and light.
There, where tapers flare on Hell's mouth
This clan damns each giant Soldan first.
And Medeas in this vast plain,
Who blink at yon dysodile lamps,
Slap thenars and each bifurcous
As javels drink from scyphus' bright.
Blood-curdling monsters on a rope
That sate upon the damn'd one's camps
As hell-winds gleam most glorious--
Each Vandal's music day or night!
Vain! vain! Each isle of hidden Hope!
Alas! Alas! Each olpe of Remorse!
Each vaulted soul and spiral thought,
Swirl in the throes of waters cold;
Where rivers with the venom crawls,
Croak bat-faced incubi till hoarse.
And succubi that Hecate taught,
Bedecked in byss and spangled gold,
Sing runes unto the dungeoned halls.
Then burning ghauts and crimsoned peaks,
Vomit each, green, abhorrent clouds;
The Temple's drum sounds tomb and death
To those that came for unsung trust,
And pyres that smoulderéd for three weeks.
Spit wenches' blood thro' addling crowds
And filch each leering vyper's breath,--
Vile japes that dam all struck with dust!
Erelong unholy fugitives roam
'Mid imbosk caves and moaning dales
To piercing screes of purple gloom,
Where gurgling sighs and rasping moans,--
Each bloody vampyre's home of loam
As life-tides drip to scarlet vales,--
Unshadowed haunts of darkling Doom!
Add terror to the rasping groans
That roaring surfs of rubic blood
Fling to each afrite's acrid crypt.
And mildewed skulls and ashen bones
That lie before each pillaréd mount,
Speak tidings of a leprous flood.
And where giants' carcants flare and sit,
The battle-crests and surging foams
That toss each swoll'n Cauldron's Count
As pyramidal realms unsunned
Glare at the stricken, tamper'd souls,
Stark wenches seek blind seers of lust
And curse each monster's hairless head.
Where fungus-fagots gleam unstunned
As witches dig unfathomed holes
And bury Helms in powderéd dust,
Sleep mourners of the newly dead
Until rayed Aureoles bright, flare,
And sparkle like Asian stars.
Hyperaspists of templéd night,
And yawning caverns cold and bleak,
Forsake the crown of addling Care;
Whilst afrites in bright jeweled cars,
Lured by the phosphorescent light,
Scale an immarcescible peak.
When giant uncus' of the damn'd
Shake Palsy's wand of brooding Fear,
And Hecate spins her daughters round
The whirling halls of spastic gloom;
When afreets prance on blister'd sand
As blood-shot jazels deck each peer,
Each empire froths a raving hound
That storms each zone of purple doom.
And scarlet foam and hiss of oils,--
Abhorrent signs of yawning hell!
'Mid roaring winds and echoes loud
As beaches ring with Torture's hold,
Dim shapes writhe in a cauldron's coils
While canceréd ghouls sound Circe's bell;
Where hideous screes stem the crowd,
Faffling gawks gleam like burnished gold.

A gangrel imp that Satan flayed,
Shrieks deeds of sin that man-wrecks wrought
Ere gyving Death each culprit smote;
Where straggling moonbeams cleft a dome,
A Prince in splendor stands arrayed
And rants his spleen unto a ghaut,
Where mongrel whelps their sorrows wrote
In channels with a harlot's bone.

A kingdom vast with jasper light
Greet jejune souls within this shoal,
Where witches lure each helot's eye,
Each gyving hoodlum, seer and sage.
In blazing tankards gleams a sight
As o'er their heads giant rocks roll,
Of skinless nudes that gasp and die
As poisoned lizards vent their rage.
Then, vile squats blast the eerie air!
Glozing gnomes of pond'rous built,
Peer at plagues that goddard's hold;
Writhe vermin in each ghoul-king's olpe,--
Blind death within a secret lair!
A varlet who his wine hath spilt
As Scorpions smote him treblefold,
Is thrown into a stagnant sea
By Lordly Helm of bad repute,
Whose visage, curl'd in ughly mien,
Vext at each leper's font of spleen,
Invokes a hairless witch to scan
The shambling hordes that boon refute,
Who lifts her unguis, long and lean,
To curse each vyper's bloody dream,
Each mongrel and forsaken man.
Then quivers that cippus' hurl'd
As templéd vaults are splinter'd wide;
And fearful fancies cleave the night
When reeking gores pierce hollows black,
Smite vandals that in sleep are curl'd:
And naiads that the vapours hide
In shadows vague--Unholy light!
(Spectres to each soul on a wrack)
Dank caverns of each vaulted soul
With spiral thoughts of feveréd haste,
'Mid the throb of murderous life
In haunted zones of vandals gyte,
Squirm at the pulse of this blind shoal
Where blood-veinéd dreams and acrid waste
Cut thro' the senses like a knife
And bid Icarian Thought to sit
Below a bleak, untower'd home,
Where fagots that the skelp hath stunned--
Plunderers of unfathomed night!
Glare thro' black shadows vague with forms
Convulsed with cries that pierce each dome
As impeached gumps seek plains unsunned,
(Satellites to mounted Light!)
Teem in the wind-strewn crest of thorns
A phantom that a charnel urn
Spewed from its lap and canceréd fold,--
Trophies of grim Destiny's crypt!
A burning pyre, whose deadly breath
Stir sighs of men as cesspools burn
A harlot strewn with virgin gold
That some malignant, stol'n script,
Condemn'd to witches' fateful death,
Spells reigning doom to one and all.

Where jarbling gumps ride hydras green,
And utter sharp, a curdling curse,
And wingless zimbs that storm each dell,
Glare at each shatter'd dome and wall
That speak of prowling apes in dream,
Of dragons drawing Horror's hearse
When bloody lanes of soulless hell
Bathed monstrous this eternal land.

When Soldans clasp dank Vellum old,
And carcants shine like scarlet foam,
With hiss of snakes and burning oils
As dirges sway both imps and damn'd,
A beacon's light that cleft Doom's fold,
Peers at the Cyclopean home
Of furnace-heat and writhing coils
Of immewed depths as cyphers red
Proclaim each gyving monster's deed.
And woful runes rake this giant gloom,
Phantastic coals lurk in the dust,
Blind whelps lie in an onyx bed
And ponder words as thumb-screws bleed
(Unto the music of king Doom)
Each gangrel villains heart of lust.

Beyond the halls of numberéd dead
Where lambent lights and crystal dews
Invoke the ghouls to guard each tomb
That vandals of the sobbing night,
When hell-winds stir the conquered dead,
And thunder shook the mourner's pews,
Giant cavalcades of marshalléd Doom
March thro' the phosphorescent light
Unto the headland of the West,
Where pageantries of warriors bold
Scyle crafty sins and purple lusts
Until the peaks and portals bright,
Where buried kings are tombed at rest,
Sweat odours dank with Torpor's cold;
Infernal pæons shake the busts
Of idols planted in the light.
And, ere immewed gyres froth black mists
Unto all ghauts and splinter'd domes
That cypher signs of dungeoned dell,
A turgid dawn arrays this vale,
Each dysodile scavenger sits
On a tomb and fondles gray bones;
An eyeless toad croaks from a well.
Then cosmic force forsakes each dale:
'Mis Cyclopean pulse of hell
Giant cauldrons vomit vapours green
And skirr thro' bristling lanes and halls:
Whilst beacons die and shrood each soul,
Dank tears drop on a fatal bell,
Wrought by a Titan's sombre queen,
Where graven vypers soop the walls
With blood from maidens scourged as toll.
Sentinel silence then holds gloom!
Vile squats curse roaring pools inflame,
A swarthy gump leers at the damn'd,
A sultry storm invades each realm.
Reared in incondite depths of doom
As shadows spell each sinner's name,
A Necromancer mounts a stand
That storms and sleet struck with their helm,
And smites the weird elements.

A cesspool stunn'd with offal's stench,
And ulexite--Each mattoid's curse!
Set in twin ridges black and red,
Obtest the foam-sprayed battlements
To count the blood-drops on a bench
That the coals of Tartarus nurse--
Disastrous, imbosked Torture's bed!
Make viscous this grim philster's hold.

Saffron Teocalli in the West,
Whose spiréd domes hold priceless stones,
And censers' fumes lull sighs and moans
As barriers dank, flee their fold,
Betrayed by crystals on a crest
That ride this kingdom's batter'd gnomes,
A fitful syrinx stills all groans
As chasms roar with devils' glee.
Then fancies greet each goblin's eye,
Each donga's depth and mount unsunned:
A quire's rune, in onyx dress,
And black-linkt harps with eyes that see
Each blood-set jazel in a sky,
Where heights eternal reign unstunned,
Pierce sylvan airs that wizards bless.
Come from sequesteréd shoals of hell
Blithe pixies and lithe naiads fair
That revel till the ev'ning skies
Grow lustrous as Arcadian noon.
Then witches in an implex dell,
With stranggling robes and burnished hair,
Flee thro' Autumnal shades and dyes,
While quickly from the sandaléd gloom,
That struggles at the pillaréd light,
Provoked by turbid drops of blood,
She gleams upon a tower'd home
That gyving hands, of crafty imps,
Reared for the Vandals of the night,
Where seething pores froth devils' flood,
And dusky shales leak scarlet foam,
Or lightly lifts her feet and skimps
Unto a rubic, boweréd vale,
To list unto a clanging bell
That spells these signs to startléd wrecks,--
Titan's satellites, Hell and Circe!
The end of her who sought a dale
Below a weird, dungeoned well,
That coffins sunken battle-decks
And a phantasmagoric hearse.

To muse in gorce's dank and bleak
'Mid shatter'd mounts that devil's split!
To mourn in plasmic Temple's fold
With gyving sod no King can shirk!
A spangléd pomp of Death's gray peak
Where owls and lizards blink and sit
As curdling cries of monsters cold
Pierce hollows deep until they irk,
Each surf-thrown afrite's eclipsed dome.
And cursing clans that felt the heat
That dwale obscured in shadows vague,
Clash thro' the broken forest boughs
Until each ronyon's stuck in loam.
There, then, bivouacs a unco Cheat,
Whose limbs were struck with pains of ague,
Who lifts his sightless eyes and sows
The seeds of Thaumaturgist's arts.
Then shakes his fist above all necks
(Whenas the dirges pierce the gloom)
And sheds his addling tears of woe.
Perturbéd at sights of flashing darts
That dragons hurl amongst soul-wrecks,
He smites a staff upon a tomb
Where phosphorescent torches glow,
And mouths his words at earless owls,
Past ribboned dusk and pillaréd woe,
Where sonless maids their sorrows heal,
And mixes purple mists with light,
Both moaning airs and cringing howls,
The swirling skelp that heavens show,
And changes this vast plane of weal,
This kingdom's tomb of rasping night
To elfin cheer as dances bloom,
And speeds his flight from Terror's urn,
Past jasper lanes where moonstones glow,
And turns his eyes at writhing Hell,
Upon the spectral haunts of Doom,
Where fiends in hissing Cesspoles burn
'Mid howls of pain from vassals flow
That rake each skull-blown vale and dell.

Where syrt sucks jargling javels mad,
And carcants cast a luring light
From mildewed screes and mounts that scyle
Veiled augueries of battling Hell,
A charnel shard assails the damn'd
Thro' vapours green and siffling night;
Monastic caverns rasp each isle;
A poisoned skink croaks from a well.
And mournful wraiths sob hard and loud,
A smotheréd sigh proclaims more woe,
The lounging imps grasp tomes of old
And rant therefrom each damn'd one's name.
And horrors, snarling at each crowd,
Assail each kingdom with its show:
A noctivagous dragon bold,
Hastes thro' the aisles of death and shame
And haunts the cajons of the dead,
There fungus-tapers gleam like gold
Before a ghoul-king's jeweled throne:
There, too, upon a Temple's arch,
Bivouacs a witch who scans the bed
Of buried kings and queens struck cold
And lifts her voice to splinter'd dome
To stem the brooding Djinnee march,
And with the dusk that meteors split,
She tries the figgum of her lust,
And throws her voice at portals dark,
Past burning pyres, where moaning airs
Call the help of Conjury's script;
And, ere cyphers burn in the dust
The names of new souls in this ark,
The ghosts of the dead prance in pairs.
This is the sphere of Dust and Tomb!
Where Trojans struck with palsied Death
As Satan smote each cavern's fold,
And whistling heat swirl'd Circe around
The coffined slabs of Aeæa's womb,
When kingdoms fought with rasping breath
As stellar domes grew black and cold,
Auric oriflammes storm'd the mount
As bristling lances smote giant hordes;
Then gorey devils fought with lust
As vulpine cries smote each jinn's ear,
Black Dragons swore beneath their breath
And murdered all rebellious Lords;
Strong hands that knew each axe's trust,
Escutcheons that all princes fear,
Hurl'd swift destruction and black death.
Where Titans storm'd a Monarch's throne,
There sleeps a Ruler carved in stone;
Where vultures guard a serpent's home,
A quarteréd warrior tells its tale.
Perturbéd at dews that drip from dome
As wattling apes their horrors groan,
The witch forsakes each glozing gnome,
Affrighted at this gurgling vale.

On crimson mounts where hydras peer--
Affronting devils in the gloom!
Unsypheréd regions wrapped in light
That hide dank vapours of each tomb,
Lurk throaty imps throughout the year
Who sing their runes as lepers soom;
Red-embered gnomes within this night
Where scarlet dyes bathe Torture's womb!
And Djinnee gasps add to the sight
That dragon-worms bred in this surge,
Build temples for queen Sorrow's home;
And pageantries of Typhon's bloom--
Immarcescible sklayres of night!
And shadows bleak, that sins do purge--
A show for Satan on this throne!
Invoke the Cauldron's spraying gloom
To newer deeds of hell-lashed lust;
Tho' dusky wizards rake the skies
(Eternal hounds that all beguile)
Unstable dreams lure Fancy fane
Below this star's unfathomed dust,
Where shatter'd domes list to the sighs
Of skinless wenches on an isle,
Where nymphs call her Christian name.
Where purple mists like poppies bloom--
Dank dulse within green rivers cold!
A flayed and sobbing maid doth lie;
Eternal curse of bedlam night
Speak of sepulchral haunts of Doom;
Unnumberéd skulls their woes have told
To studded domes and opaque sky
Beneath the Arching vales of light.
Alight with fires red and green
That show the coffers of each tomb,
Jarbling vandals rake the night-coals,
Shales and husks; and, ere reigning night
Provokes each harlot's fitful dream
To cleave the casements of king Doom
And reach the swoll'n, acrid shoals,
Where stationed Mounts are penciled white
That mark the maw of raging hell,
Till, eyes awake stare at each flame
Unsung and, on boulders that burn,
Peer at two lordly squats in dust
As wenches drink from poisoned well,
'Mid purple sins and naked shame
In Typhon's olpe and churning urn
Of stranded devils, souls and lust.

When earthly homes are tombed in dust,
And Life forsakes geotic shoals;
When midst the tombs of penetence,
When coffins damp, and slimmy clay,
Each Lordly