Alfred Noyes

Necromancy

    (AFTER THE PROSE OF BAUDELAIRE)


    This necromantic palace, dim and rich,
      Dim as a dream, rich as a reverie,
    I knew it all of old, surely I knew
    This floating twilight tinged with rose and blue,
              This moon-soft carven niche
      Whence the calm marble, wan as memory,
    Slopes to the wine-brimmed bath of cold dark fire
    Perfumed with old regret and dead desire.

    There the soul, slumbering in the purple waves
      Of indolence, dreams of the phantom years,
    Dreams of the wild sweet flower of red young lips
    Meeting and murmuring in the dark eclipse
            Of joy, where pain still craves
      One tear of love to mingle with their tears,
    One passionate welcome ere the wild farewell,
    One flash of heaven across the fires of hell.

       *   *   *   *

    Queen of my dreams, queen of my pitiless dreams,
      Dim idol, moulded of the wild white rose,
    Coiled like a panther in that silken gloom
    Of scented cushions, where the rich hushed room
            Breaks into soft warm gleams,
    As from her slumbrous clouds Queen Venus glows,
    Slowly thine arms up-lift to me, thine eyes
    Meet mine, without communion or surmise.

    Here, at thy feet, I watched, I watched all day
      Night floating in thine eyes, then with my hands
    Covered my face from that dumb cry of pain:
    And when at last I dared to look again
            My heart was far away,
    Wrapt in the fragrant gloom of Eastern lands,
    Under the flower-white stars of tropic skies
    Where soft black floating flowers turned to ... thine eyes.

    I breathe, I breathe the perfume of thine hair:
      Bury in thy deep hair my fevered face,
    Till as to men athirst in desert dreams
    The savour and colour and sound of cool dark streams
            Float round me everywhere,
      And memories float from some forgotten place,
    Fulfilling hopeless eyes with hopeless tears
    And fleeting light of unforgotten years.

    Dim clouds of music in the dim rich hours
      Float to me thro' the twilight of thine hair,
    And sails like blossoms float o'er purple seas,
    And under dark green skies the soft warm breeze
            Washes dark fruit, dark flowers,
      Dark tropic maidens in some island lair
    Couched on the warm sand nigh the creaming foam
    To dream and sing their tawny lovers home.

    Lost in the magic ocean of thine hair
      I find the haven of the heart of song:
    There tired ships rest against the pale red sky!
    And yet again there comes a thin sad cry
            And all the shining air
      Fades, where the tall dark singing seamen throng
    From many generations, many climes,
    Fades, fades, as it has faded many times.

    I hear the sweet cool whisper of the waves!
      Drowned in the slumbrous billows of thine hair,
    I dream as one that sinks thro' passionate hours
    In a strange ship's wild fraughtage of dark flowers
            Culled for pale poets' graves;
      And opiate odours load the empurpled air
    That flows and droops, a dark resplendent pall
    Under the floating wreaths funereal.

    Under the heavy midnight of thine hair
      An altar flames with spices of the south
    Burning my flesh and spirit in the flame;
    Till, looking tow'rds the land from whence I came
            I find no comfort there,
      And all the darkness to my thirsty mouth
    Is fire, but always and in every place
    Blossoms the secret wonder of thy face.

       *   *   *   *

    The walls, the very walls are woven of dreams,
      All undefined by blasphemies of art!
    Here, pure from finite hues the very night
    Conceives the mystic harmonies of light,
            Delicious glooms and gleams;
      And sorrow falls in rose-leaves on the heart,
    And pain that yearns upon the passing hour
    Is but a perfume haunting a dead flower.

    Hark, as a hammer on a coffin falls
      A knock upon the door! The colours wane,
    The dreams vanish! And leave that foul white scar,
    Tattoo'd with dreadful marks, the old calendar
            Blotching the blistered walls!
      The winter whistles thro' a shivered pane,
    And scatters on the bare boards at my feet
    These poor soiled manuscripts, torn, incomplete...

    The scent of opium floats about my breath;
      But Time resumes his dark and hideous reign;
    And, with him, hideous memories troop, I know.
    Hark, how the battered clock ticks, to and fro,--
        _Life, Death--Life, Death--Life, Death_--
      O fool to cry! O slave to bow to pain,
    Coward to live thus tortured with desire
    By demon nerves in hells of sensual fire.