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THE HASHISH-EATER
Shaking the riper trees to dust, that fallsIn clouds of acrid perfume, stifling meBeneath a pall of iris.Now the palmsGrow far apart and lessen momentlyTo shrubs a dwarf might topple. Over themI see an empty desert, all ablazeWith amethysts and rubies, and the dustOf garnets or carnelians. On I roam,Treading the gorgeous grit, that dazzles meWith leaping waves of endless rutilance,Whereby the air is turned to a crimson gloom,Through which I wander, blind as any Kobold;Till underfoot the griding sands give placeTo stone or metal, with a massive ringMore welcome to mine ears than golden bells,Or tinkle of silver fountains. When the gloomOf crimson lifts, I stand upon the edgeOf a broad black plain of adamant, that reaches,Level as a windless water, to the vergeOf all the world; and through the sable plain,A hundred streams of shattered marble run,And streams of broken steel, and streams of bronze,Like to the ruin of all the wars of time,To plunge, with clangour of timeless cataracts,Adown the gulfs eternal.So I follow,Between a river of steel and a river of bronze,With ripples loud and tuneless as the clashOf a million lutes; and come to the precipiceFrom which they fall, and make the mighty soundOf a million swords that meet a million shields,Or din of spears and armour in the warsOf all the worlds and aeons: Far beneath,They fall, through gulfs and cycles of the void,And vanish like a stream of broken stars,Into the nether darkness; nor the godsOf any sun, nor demons of the gulf,Will dare to know what everlasting sea
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