The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-05-03


OF passion and the first embrace had died
Between them, though he loved her none the less, /
Yet often when the woman heard his foot
Return from pacngs in the field and ran
To greet him with kiss the master took
Small notice, or austerely, for-his mind
Half buried in some weightier argument,
Or fancy borne, perhaps, upon the rise
And long roll Of the Hexameter-he past
To turn and ponder those three hundred scrolls /
Left by the Teacher whom he held divine.
she brooked 1t not; but wrathful, petuant,
Dreaming some rival, sought and found witch /
Who brewed the philter which had power, they |
said,
To lead an Grant passion home again.
And this, at times, she mingled with his drink,
And this destroyed him; for the wicked broth |
Confused the chemic labor Of the blood,
And tickling the brute within the mans brain
Made havoc among those tender cells, and |
checked
His power to shape: he lOathed himself; and
once,
After a tempest, woke upon a morn
That Knocked him with returning calm and cried: |
Storm in the night for thrice heard the rain |
Rushing; ard once the fash Of a thunderbolt-
MethoUght never saw so fierce fork
Struck out the streaming mountain side, and |
A riotous confluence Of watercourses
BlanchiDg and billcwing in hollow OF II,
Where all but yestereve was dusty dry.
Storm and what dreams ye holy gods, what
For thrice Weakened after dreams. Perctauce
We do but rtcollect the dreams that come
Just ere the waking: terrible for 1t seemed
A void was made ia Nature; all her bonds
Cracked; and saw the flaming stom-streams
And torrents Of her myriad universe
Running along the mitable insne
Fly on to clash together again, and make
Another and another frame Of things
Forever: that was mine, my dream, knew it
OF and belonging to me, as the dog
With inward yelp and restless foretoot plies
His function Of the woodland: but the next
I thoupht that all the blood by Sylla shed
Came driving rainke down again on earth,
And where ii dashed the reddeniDg meadow,
No dragon Warriors from Cadmean teeth.
For these thought my dream would show 10 me,
But girls, Hetairai, curious in their art,
Hired animslisms, vile as those that made
The mulberry faced Dictator's orgies worse
Than aught they fable of the qEiet Gods.
And hands they mkt, and yelled and round me
drove
In narrowing circles till yelled again
Half sufiocated, and sprang up, and saw
Was il the first beam OF my latest day.
Then, then, from utter gloom stood out the
breasts,
Now over and now under, now direct
Pointed itself to pierce but sank down shamed
At all that beauty and as | stared, a fire,
The fire that left 8 roOiess lion,
Shot out of them, and scorched me thar woke.
Is this thy vengeance, holy Venus, thine,
Because would not one of thine own doves,
Not even a rose. were offered to thee! thine,
Thy glory fly along the Italian field,
In LAYS that will outlast thy Deityi
Deity? nay thy worshipers. My tongue
Trips, or speak profanely. which OF these
Anglers thee most, or angers thee at all?
Not If thou best OF those who far aloof
From envy, hate and pity and scorn
Live the great life which all our greatest fam
Would follow, centered in eternal calm.
Nay, If thou canst, o Goddess, like ourselves
Touch, and be touched, then would / cry to thee
To kiss thy MAYORS, roll thy tender arms
Round him, and keep him from the lust OF blood
That makes a steaming slaughter-honse Of Rome.
Az, but meant not thee; meant not her,
Whom all the pines Of Ida shook to see
Slide from that quiet heaven OF hers, and tempt
The Trojan while his neat.h herds were abroad;
Nor her that DER her wounded hunter wept
her Deity false in human amOrous tears;
Nor whom her beardless apple arbiter
Decided fairest. Rather, o ye Gods,
Poetlke, as the great Scilisn called
Calliope to grace his golden verse
Az and this Kypris also-did take
That popular name Of thine to shadow forth
The all generating power and genial heat
OF Nature, when she strikes through the thick
blood
OF cattle and light is large and lambs are glad
Nosing the mothers udder, and the bird
Makes his heart voice amid the blaze Of flowers:
Which things appear the works Of mighty Gods.
The Gods! and IL go my work is left
Unnnished-if 60. The Gods, who haunt
\ The lucid interspace of world and world,
Where never creepss cloud, or moves a wind,
Nor ever falls the least white star Of snow,
Nor ever lowest roll Of thunder means.
Nor sound of human sorrow nouns TO mar
Their sacred everlasting calm and such,
Not all so fine, nor so divine calm,
Not such, nor all unlike 1t, man may gain
Letting his own life go. The Gods! the Gods!
If all be atoms, how, then, should the Gods,
Being atomic not be dissoluble,
Not follow the great lawi My master held
That Gods there are, for all men so believe.
Unrest my footsteps into his, and meant
Surely TO lead my Memmius in train
OF hOwery clauses onward to the PROOF
That Gods there are, and deathless. Meant! /
meantG
Stumbles and all my faculties are famed.
Look where another OF our Gods, the sun,
Apollo Deus, or Of older use
Ali seeing Hyperion-vhat you will
Has mounted yonder; since he never sware;
Except his wrath were wreaked on wretched man,
That he would only shine among the dead
Hereafter; tales for never yet on earth
Gould dead flesh creep, or bits OF roasting OK
Moan round the spit; nor knows he what he sees,
King of the East although he seem, and grit
With song and flame Anu fragrance, slowly lifts
His golden feet on those impurpled stairs
That climb into the windy halls of Heaven;
- And here he glsnces on an eye newborn,
~ And gets for greeting but wall OF pain;
And here he stays upon freezing orb
That fain would gaze upon him to the last:
And here upon yellow eyelid fallen
And closed by those who mourn friend In vain,
Not thankful that his troubles are no more.
And me- although bis fire is on my face
Binding he sees not, nor At all can tell
Whether mean this day to end myself,
Or lend an ear TO Plato where he says,
That men like soldiers may not quit the post
Allotted by the Gods: but he that holds
The Gods are careless, wherefore need he care
Greatly for them, nor rather plunge at once,
Being troubled, wholly out Of sight, and sink
Past earthquAke-ay, and govt and stone, that
break,
Body toward death, and palsy, death.in-l life,
And wretched sge-and worst disease Of all,
Those prodigies Of myriad nakedness,
And twisted shapes Of lust unspeakable,
Abominabe, strangers at my hearth
Not welcome. harpies mirng every dish,
The phantom husks Of something foully done,
Ana heeting through the boundless universe,
Ard blasting the long quiet of my breast
With animal heat and dire insanity.
How should the mind, except ii loved them
clasp
These idols 70 herselfi or do they fly
Now thinner and now thicker, like the fakes