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THE HASHISH-EATER
Of darkness climbing sunward. Now they come,A Sabbath of abominable shapes,Led by the fiends and lamiae of worldsThat owned my sway aforetime! Cockatrice,Python, tragelaphus, leviathan,Chimera, martichoras, behemoth,Geryon and sphinx, and hydra, on my kenArise as might some Afrite-builded city,Consummate in the lifting of a lash,With thundrous domes and sounding obelisks,And towers of night and fire alternate! WingsOf white-hot stone along the hissing wind,Bear up the huge and furnace-hearted beastsOf hells beyond Rutilicus; and thingsWhose lightless length would meet the gyre of moons—Born from the caverns of a dying sun,Uncoil to the very zenith, half disclosedFrom gulfs below the horizon; octopiLike blazing moons with countless arms of fire,Climb from the seas of ever-surging flameThat roll and roar through planets unconsumed,Beating on coasts of unknown metals; beastsThat range the mighty worlds of Alioth, rise,Aforesting the heavens with multitudinous horns,Within whose maze the winds are lost; and borneOn cliff-like brows of plunging scolopendras,The shell-wrought tow'rs of ocean-witches loom,And griffin-mounted gods, and demons thronedOn sable dragons, and the cockodrillsThat bear the spleenful pygmies on their backs;And blue-faced wizards from the worlds of Saiph,On whom Titanic scorpions fawn; and armiesThat move with fronts reverted from the foe,And strike athwart their shoulders at the shapesTheir shields reflect in crystal; and eidolaFashioned within unfathomable cavesBy hands of eyeless peoples; and the blindAnd worm-shaped monsters of a sunless world,With krakens from the ultimate abyss,
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