A swarthy demon laughs with glee.
Then, thickly from a ghastly hole
The turbid dyes of blood doth bloom
From minxes bold, crouched with giant fear,
Provoke a sage who could not see,
With feelings for her impeached soul.

Low arches of a charnel house,
Above whose dome two demons sit,
That guard the lamps of fateful red,
Veiled whispers from a maiden's soul
Cleave skyward until they arrouse
A savage hound of hell with script
That holds her body's deeds. A-bed,
He peers thro' shades unto her shoal,
Then at his tome where sins are wrote
Of wifes that sold their names in lust,
Or men that worshipped naught but gold.
And, when stillness holds troubled sway,
A baneful imp that Conscience smote,
Rasps names of those bowed in the dust:
And, when thus their sins are foretold,
As kinsmen strike their beasts and pray,
A livid gasp permeates the air,
A curdling curse assails the night.
And squats, whose scarlet venom crawls
To lantern's-glow that tell the guilt
Of battling demons as they swear,
Malignly dumb below each light
That scyle the bloody walls and halls,
The life-ebb from a wench is spilt.
The phosphorescent fungus-lights
Are traitors' lamps that sorrows hide;
The foam-sprayed beaches that we see,
Are treasure-houses for the damn'd.
From year to year infernal nights
Rasp shoals a thousand furlongs wide;
In ev'ry zone, each distant lee,
Holds ghastly sights of burning sand.
The headlands that we reach by day,
About whose shore the dragons roam;
And mildewed vaults of gathered bone,
Where eyeless skulls and ape-shanks lie
As moaning winds reel to and sway
From gorey pools and tower'd dome,
A goggling wraith and shambling gnome
Doth forage for each fleeing sigh.

Now Sorrow that the Dooms crown'd King,
Flees from the mouth of pools inflame,
Whilst Lords in robes of scarlet hue,
Add to the damn'd, malignant show;
Pellicles that all eyes did sting
In Vengeance's law that none could tame,
Flees whence two lights of dreaming blue
Cleave dome-thrown shadows dress'd in woe.

A Thaumaturgist, cursed and damn'd,
Raps skulls from which a venom pours,
And shakes his fists where opals burn,
Whence figgum that his hands control
Is charged with life; and on the sand
Two witches sate their thirst in gores,
Flit Fancy's wings unto a urn,
(Within whose tomb there writhes a soul)
And with Cou