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Forbidden Magic

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There came to me a Man one summer night,

When all the world lay silent in the stars,

And moonlight crossed my room with ghostly bars.

He whispered hints of weird, unhallowed sight;

I followed – then in waves of spectral light

Mounted the shimmery ladders of my soul

Where moon-pale spiders, huge as dragons, stole –

Great forms like moths, with wings of wispy white.

Around the world the sighing of the loon

Shook misty lakes beneath the false-dawn’s gleams;

Rose tinted shone the sky-line’s minaret;

I rose in fear, and then with blood and sweat

Beat out the iron fabrics of my dreams,

And shaped of them a web to snare the moon.

The Gates of Ninevah

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These are the gates of Nineveh: here

Sargon came when his wars were won

Gazed at the turrets looming clear

Boldly etched in the morning sun

Down from his chariot Sargon came

Tossed his helmet upon the sand

Dropped his sword with its blade like flame

Stroked his beard with his empty hand

"Towers are flaunting their banners red

The people greet me with song and mirth

But a weird is on me," Sargon said

"And I see the end of the tribes of earth"

"Cities crumble, and chariots rust

I see through a fog that is strange and gray

All kingly things fade back to the dust

Even the gates of Nineveh"

Girl

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Gods, what a handsome youth across the way.

What shall I do to make him notice me?

I must not be too obvious—there

I'll shift my dress, demurely and let him see

A quick glance of an ankle very trim;

Then blush and smooth my skirts down hastily

As if 'twere unintentional—Hell!

The fool's not even got his eyes on me.

A Great Man Speaks

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They set me up on high, a marble saint,

As if to guard the virtue of the park.

My flanks are gaunt, my gaze is cold and stark,

For I must look the part the liars paint,

They've cleansed my history of fleshy taint.

The elders bid the younger people mark

How virtuous I gleam against the dark—

Could I but speak I'd make the bastards faint.

Great God, how could they know the lusty zest,

The love of life that made my sinews dance?—

Below me now, against my base, inert,

A lousy tramp, a sleeping house-maid rest,

I yearn for that square flask in his old pants.

My fingers burn to feel beneath her skirt.

The Grey Lover

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Lover, grey lover, your arms are about me

Through your green billows I sink to my rest;

Never again shall futilities flout me

Rousing dim torments to harry my breast.

Royal lost galleys about me are riding

Tides ever surging their sea treasures bring.

Here shall I slumber the years without number,

Dreaming unharried like some magic king.

The Harp of Alfred

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I heard the harp of Alfred

As I went o'er the downs,

When thorn-trees stood at even

Like monks in dusky gowns;

I heard the music Guthrum heard

Beside the wasted towns:

When Alfred, like a peasant,

Came harping down the hill,

And the drunken danes made merry

With the man they sought to kill,

And the Saxon king laughed in their beards

And bent them to his will.

I heard the harp of Alfred

As the twilight waned to night;

I heard ghost armies tramping

As the dim stars flamed white;

And Guthrum walked at my left hand,

And Alfred at my right.

High Blue Halls

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There’s a kingdom far from the sun and star

With never a wind to dree;

Where the golden balls of the silence falls

In the high blue halls of the sea.

There’s death to change in that kingdom strange,

For its days are all the same;

Its blue floors blaze in a golden maze

Through a purple haze of flame.

Through an emerald sheen dim shapes careen

And white limbs trail and quiver;

In rose pale fire ’round spear and spire

In white desire they shiver.

There’s never a tree for eye to see

But ever in ghostly showers

Great petals white drift down the night

Like a wild delight of flowers.

There’s a kingdom dim ’neath a ghost tree’s limb,

That throbs eternally,

Life’s furtherest halls where magic calls

In the high blue halls of the sea.

How to Select a Successful Evangelist

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First, find a man who has a goodly voice,

Whose yell shall shake the very topmost spire

When he proclaims some rival rev a liar.

Pass up the knowledge if he has the noise.

Next, see he mixes freely with the boys.

A man with carefully concealed desire,

But one whose sex appeal is like a fire—

Then he is sure of all the women’s choice.

Yet let him be discreet—Let not a rumor

Attend his trail. Let him condemn all thought

Most loudly as the evil he has fought.

Enough vulgarity to pass as humor.

He shall be sure then, gathering the tin

And lead ten thousand from the ways of sin.

Illusion

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I stood upon surf-booming cliffs

And heard the tide-race roaring, roaring strong and deep and free;

On tall wind wings the white clouds sudded by.

Far to the eat the ocean met the sky

And the booming cliffs re-echoed to the thunder of the sea.

Green are the waves and fringed with white the crest: