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THE HASHISH-EATER
Gather and throng to the base of darkness; flameBehind some black, abysmal curtain burns,Implacable, and fanned to whitest wrathBy raised wings that flail the whiffled gloom,And make a brief and broken wind that moans,As one who rides a throbbing rack. There isA Thing that crouches, worlds and years remote,Whose horns a demon sharpens, rasping forthA note to shatter the donjon-keeps of time,And crack the sphere of crystal.***All is darkFor ages, and my tolling heart suspendsIts clamour, as within the clutch of death,Tightening with tense, hermetic rigours. Then,In one enormous, million-flashing flame,The stars unveil, the suns remove their cowls,And beam to their responding planets; timeIs mine once more, and armies of its dreamsRally to that insuperable throne,Firmed on the central zenith.
Now I seekThe meads of shining moly I had foundIn some remoter vision, by a streamNo cloud hath ever tarnished; where the sun,A gold Narcissus, loiters evermoreAbove his golden image: But I findA corpse the ebbing water will not keep,With eyes like sapphires that have lain in hell,And felt the hissing embers; and the flow'rsAbout me turn to hooded serpents, swayedBy flutes of devils in a hellish dance,Meet for the nod of Satan, when he reignsAbove the raging Sabbath, and is wooedBy sarabands of witches. But I turnTo mountains guarding with their horns of snowThe source of that befoulèd rill, and seekA pinnacle where none but eagles climb,And they with failing pennons. But in vain
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