Ultimate Collection

That is borne to land on the tide-race crest:

And all that goes, from mid-ocean to lea,

To make up the rolling, the surging sea!

Can ye stand on the peaceful, quiet lea,

And gaze on the tumbling, tossing sea,

Out o'er the surge and the white waves' crest,

Nor feel a longing within your breast?

A drawing, a pull, be it day or night,

That tempts ye to dare the ocean's might.

I stood on the deck of a ship offshore

And harked to the awesome and deafening roar

Of the ocean waves when they struck the reefs,

High tossed on the tide like crested chiefs

Whose plumes toss high 'bove the battling hordes,

Where leap the lances and flash the swords.

And the mighty waves rose high and steep

To the hand of the waves that smote the deep.

And my soul leaped wild and my would leaped free,

To the leap and the swing of the rolling sea!

And my soul was freed with that ocean leap,

And it plumed the depths of the mighty deep!

Down, down, down where the mermaids ride,

Down where the things of the deep sea glide.

Down where the ships, long sunken, float,

War-ship and galley and coracle boat;

Down beyond reach of the storms or the tides,

To the coral halls where old Triton hides!

And I saw the mermaids and the mermen play,

The the kraken and sea-serpent locked in fray.

And all the ocean-marvels that be,

And the wonderful monsters of the sea.

I wandered 'mongst beautiful sea-flowers,

Where the castle built by the polyp towers,

Where the waters glitter with strange sea-jade,

And the sea-things swim through the deep-sea glade.

And then my soul came back on me,

Back through the surge of the swinging sea.

But still I gaze from the quiet lea,

And long for the swing of the plunging sea.

Secrets

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There is a serpent lifts his crest o' nights

And hisses in the darkness of my room.

His substance and the cloaking night are one;

His form is of the soft, thick, musky dark.

His strange eyes glimmer and his scales are loud

Yet none but I can hear—and scarcely I.

His gliding whispers shake my sluggish soul

With strange wild fires and lights of other dreams.

He loops himself about me in the dark;

I struggle with a strange, wild ecstasy

And seek, yet would not wish, to free my limbs.

Strange shudders shake my limbs at his cold touch

As coil on coil he laps my naked form.

Colder than ice he is, yet in my soul

He kindles fires more hot that Hades' breath.

With soft insidious whisper at my cheek

He lures me to the midnight's curious joys.

I rise and follow. All the land is still.

the crescent moon hangs breathless in the sky,

Whose crystal deeps are pierced with pointed stars.

Through woodlands silver black he leads me on.

Over the terraced swards where fountains dance,

Until the moon lights up a window sill.

My naked feet no hint of sound may make.

We glide together o'er the silver sill.

I hear the velvet hangings swish behind

like whisper of some crimson nightmare's wings.

My feet sink deep in rugs of silken weave

And like a ghost I bend above the bed,

A girl lies there, her sleeping lips a-smile

On soft arm pillowing the golden head.

Her tender limbs stretched out in light repose.

There is no gown to veil her symmetry.

She lies and shimmers ivory in the moon.

Those perfect, scarlet lips were made to kiss;

My arm should be about that slender waist.

But here the serpent rustles grisly scales.

And sways beside me like a fearful tree.

His whispers speak of deeper, fiercer lusts,

Of wilder joys, most terrible and strange.

That change soft dreams to nightmares red and grim.

He indicates the curves of that soft breast;

He whispers of the red wine which is blood.

He makes me feel the thrill that's born of death.

This is not earthly—from what darkened world,

What shadowed planet, what inhuman sphere

Come such wild dreams, such fearsome fantasies?

The serpent bids me stoop to that soft breast

To let the dagger kiss—with one swift thrust—

Death should be beautiful, then crouching by

Watch with quick breath and glinting eye the blood

Drain slowly from that soft, rose-tinted cheek

Until the wine has oozed from every vein

Leaving her marble white and marble cold

Like some inhuman goddess from a star.

Drained clean of all the grosser things of life.

Then raise her gently from the ruby lake

And kiss her cheeks as one who knows true sin.

Serpent

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I am the symbol of Creation and Destruction

I am the beginning and the end.

With my tail in my mouth

I am the Circle of Eternity.

Wisdom is in my eyes

And the dusk of wisdom lurks amid my coils.

My track circles the world

And I loop my coils around the Universe.

My head waves among the stars

And the nations fall prostrate before me.

Coiled, head upright, I am the spirit of the sea.

The world-shaking dinosaur was my henchman

And the flying dragons were my footmen.

The ancients knew me.

They reared shrines and altars

And I taught them dim, dusky wisdom.

I coiled in the ruins of Troy and Babylon

And on the forgotten streets of Nineveh.

The Norse called me Midgaard and built their galleys

Like a sea-serpent.

The Egyptians and the Indians called me Ysis

And the Phoenecians Baal.