- DARK Angel, with thine aching lust
- To rid the world of penitence:
- Malicious Angel, who still dost
- My soul such subtile violence!
- Because of thee, no thought, no thing,
- Abides for me undesecrate:
- Dark Angel, ever on the wing,
- Who never reachest me too late!
- When music sounds, then changest thou
- Its silvery to a sultry fire:
- Nor will thine envious heart allow
- Delight untortured by desire.
- Through thee, the gracious Muses turn,
- To Furies, O mine Enemy!
- And all the things of beauty burn
- With flames of evil ecstasy.
- Because of thee, the land of dreams
- Becomes a gathering place of fears:
- Until tormented slumber seems
- One vehemence of useless tears.
- When sunlight glows upon the flowers,
- Or ripples down the dancing sea:
- Thou, with thy troop of passionate powers,
- Beleaguerest, bewilderest, me.
- Within the breath of autumn woods,
- Within the winter silences:
- Thy venomous spirit stirs and broods,
- O Master of impieties!
- The ardour of red flame is thine,
- And thine the steely soul of ice:
- Thou poisonest the fair design
- Of nature, with unfair device.
- Apples of ashes, golden bright;
- Waters of bitterness, how sweet!
- O banquet of a foul delight,
- Prepared by thee, dark Paraclete!
- Thou art the whisper in the gloom,
- The hinting tone, the haunting laugh:
- Thou art the adorner of my tomb,
- The minstrel of mine epitaph.
- I fight thee, in the Holy Name!
- Yet, what thou dost, is what God saith:
- Tempter! should I escape thy flame,
- Thou wilt have helped my soul from Death:
- The second Death, that never dies,
- That cannot die, when time is dead:
- Live Death, wherein the lost soul cries,
- Eternally uncomforted.
- Dark Angel, with thine aching lust!
- Of two defeats, of two despairs:
- Less dread, a change to drifting dust,
- Than thine eternity of cares.
- Do what thou wilt, thou shalt not so,
- Dark Angel! triumph over me:
- Lonely, unto the Lone I go;
- Divine, to the Divinity.
- Lionel Johnson DARK ANGEL
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