University of Virginia Library


93

V

I wake from one more Circe-draught of love,
And all my soul is sick with sulphur fumes
And poisonous salt savours. Yet, above
The noisome hell-reek that my soul consumes,
The blood-taste and the blackness, I am 'ware
Of some o'erwhelming terror that before
O'ertook me not in my most dark despair;
A cold wind drives me to some dreadful door.
Death is it? I have long been friends with Death.
Hell is it? I have oft been housed in Hell.
It is not Madness, though it maddeneth,
Nor fanged Remorse—I know Remorse too well.
What, Love! were those but flittings, this thy flying?
What, Love! were those thy slumbers, this thy dying?

94