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THE HASHISH-EATER
On plains with no horizon, where a godMight lose his way for centuries; and there,In wreathèd light, and fulgors all convolved,A rout of green, enormous moons ascend,With rays that like a shivering venom runOn inch-long swords of lizard-fang.SurveyedFrom this my throne, as from a central sun,The pageantries of worlds and cycles pass;Forgotten splendours, dream by dream unfold,Like tapestry, and vanish; violet suns,Or suns of changeful iridescence, bringTheir rays about me, like the coloured lightsImploring priests might lift to glorifyThe face of some averted god; the songsOf mystic poets in a purple world,Ascend to me in music that is madeFrom unconceivèd perfumes, and the pulseOf love ineffable; the lute-playersWhose lutes are strung with gold of the utmost moon,Call forth delicious languors, never knownSave to their golden kings; the sorcerersOf hooded stars inscrutable to God,Surrender me their demon-wrested scrolls,Inscribed with lore of monstrous alchemies,And awful transformations.***If I will,I am at once the vision and the seer,And mingle with my ever-streaming pomps,And still abide their suzerain: I amThe neophyte who serves a nameless god,Within whose fane the fanes of HecatompylosWere arks the Titan worshippers might bear,Or flags to pave the threshold; or I amThe god himself, who calls the fleeing cloudsInto the nave where suns might congregate,And veils the darkling mountain of his faceWith fold on solemn fold; for whom the priestsAmass their monthly hecatomb of gems—Opals that are a camel-cumbering load,
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