Necromancy (After the Prose of Baudelaire)

This necromantic palace, dim and rich,Dim as a dream, rich as a reverie,I knew it all of old, surely I knewThis floating twilight tinged with rose and blue,This moon-soft carven nicheWhence the calm marble, wan as memory,Slopes to the wine-brimmed bath of cold dark firePerfumed with old regret and dead desire.

There the soul, slumbering in the purple wavesOf indolence, dreams of the phantom years,Dreams of the wild sweet flower of red young lipsMeeting and murmuring in the dark eclipseOf joy, where pain still cravesOne tear of love to mingle with their tears,One passionate welcome ere the wild farewell,One flash of heaven across the fires of hell.

Queen of my dreams, queen of my pitiless dreams,Dim idol, moulded of the wild white rose,Coiled like a panther in that silken gloomOf scented cushions, where the rich hushed roomBreaks into soft warm gleams,As from her slumbrous clouds Queen Venus glows,Slowly thine arms up-lift to me, thine eyesMeet mine, without communion or surmise.

Here, at thy feet, I watched, I watched all dayNight floating in thine eyes, then with my handsCovered my face from that dumb cry of pain:And when at last I dared to look againMy heart was far away,Wrapt in the fragrant gloom of Eastern lands,Under the flower-white stars of tropic skiesWhere soft black floating flowers turned to ... thine eyes.

I breathe, I breathe the perfume of thine hair:Bury in thy deep hair my fevered face,Till as to men athirst in desert dreamsThe savour and colour and sound of cool dark streamsFloat round me everywhere,And memories float from some forgotten place,Fulfilling hopeless eyes with hopeless tearsAnd fleeting light of unforgotten years.

Dim clouds of music in the dim rich hoursFloat to me thro' the twilight of thine hair,And sails like blossoms float o'er purple seas,And under dark green skies the soft warm breezeWashes dark fruit, dark flowers,Dark tropic maidens in some island lairCouched on the warm sand nigh the creaming foamTo dream and sing their tawny lovers home.

Lost in the magic ocean of thine hairI find the haven of the heart of song:There tired ships rest against the pale red sky!And yet again there comes a thin sad cryAnd all the shining airFades, where the tall dark singing seamen throngFrom many generations, many climes,Fades, fades, as it has faded many times.

I hear the sweet cool whisper of the waves!Drowned in the slumbrous billows of thine hair,I dream as one that sinks thro' passionate hoursIn a strange ship's wild fraughtage of dark flowersCulled for pale poets' graves;And opiate odours load the empurpled airThat flows and droops, a dark resplendent pallUnder the floating wreaths funereal.

Under the heavy midnight of thine hairAn altar flames with spices of the southBurning my flesh and spirit in the flame;Till, looking tow'rds the land from whence I cameI find no comfort there,And all the darkness to my thirsty mouthIs fire, but always and in every placeBlossoms the secret wonder of thy face.

The walls, the very walls are woven of dreams,All undefined by blasphemies of art!Here, pure from finite hues the very nightConceives the mystic harmonies of light,Delicious glooms and gleams;And sorrow falls in rose-leaves on the heart,And pain that yearns upon the passing hourIs but a perfume haunting a dead flower.

Hark, as a hammer on a coffin fallsA knock upon the door! The colours wane,The dreams vanish! And leave that foul white scar,Tattoo'd with dreadful marks, the old calendarBlotching the blistered walls!The winter whistles thro' a shivered pane,And scatters on the bare boards at my feetThese poor soiled manuscripts, torn, incomplete...

The scent of opium floats about my breath;But Time resumes his dark and hideous reign;And, with him, hideous memories troop, I know.Hark, how the battered clock ticks, to and fro,--Life, Death--Life, Death--Life, Death--O fool to cry! O slave to bow to pain,Coward to live thus tortured with desireBy demon nerves in hells of sensual fire.