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From the ghosts that leer and stare.

I'll lie all day in a sodden sleep

Through days without name or number,

With only the wind in the sky's blue deep

To haunt my unshaken slumber.

And I'll lie by night in the star-roofed hut

Forgetful and quiet hearted,

Till she comes with her burning eyes half shut

And her red lips hot and parted.

The past is flown when the cup is full,

And there is no chain for linking

And any woman is beautiful

When a man is blind with drinking.

Life is a lie that cuts like a knife

With its sorrow and fading blisses;

I'll go to a girl who asks naught of life

Save wine and a drunkard's kisses.

No man shall know my race or name,

Or my past sun-ripe or rotten,

Till I travel the road by which I came,

Forgetting and soon forgotten.

Tarantella

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Heads! Heads! Heads!

Bounce on the cobble stones.

Glitter of scarlets and flame of reds

Crimson the road that Freedom treads,

We’re rearing a fane of bones.

And bare feet

Weave their beat

Down the red reeking street.

Hell holds sway.

Slay! Slay!

Hate goes bellowing through the land,

Crimson-hued is my gleaming brand.

Kill! Kill! And my lips a-thrill

With hot kisses snatched in the frenzied whirl—

Raped from the lips of a noble girl.

And her brother’s blood on my hand.

Rage, lust, passion-hot.

Prance, dance, you sans culotte.

This is your hour, the height of your power,

Culture, decency forgot.

Blood! Blood! The red gleams preen

On yon fair maid the guillotine!

Vive, vive la guillotine!

Hate and slaughter, that is all;

Blood to shed and heads to fall.

Love is lust and good is lies,

Satan rides the eery skies.

Dance and sway

Whirl away

Meet and kiss, it is bliss

But to slay!

All the world’s a gore-rimmed sea, lo, the devil laughs with glee.

Come and dance then, you with me, come and caper wild and free.

With red blood those fires are lit,

Hades’ smoke is tinged with it.

And the very skies that soar

Are encrimsoned as with gore—

Yon was once a baron’s head,

Now it decks a pike instead.

I salute ye, with my sword.

Here’s to you, m’sieu le lord.

Much you had of wondrous wine,

Ermine coats and horses fine,

Luscious lips of dainty girls,

Snowy bosoms, gold and pearls,

None so haughty as your sneer—

Now you ride a common’s spear.

Here’s to you! In hell you burn.

I am on the upward turn

Of the slow revolving Wheel

With my reign of blood and steel.

O’er my prostrate head ye strode;

On my shoulder bent ye rode.

You the whip-man, I the clown

Till I rose to tread you down.

They will rise to trample me—

For the moment I am free.

Through the ribs the winds may drone

Now the world is all mine own.

Mine to lust, to rage, to dance!

Vive la Freedom! Vive la France!

The Tempter

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Something tapped me on the shoulder

Something whispered, "Come with me,

"Leave the world of men behind you,

"Come where care may never find you

"Come and follow, let me bind you

"Where, in that dark, silent sea,

"Tempest of the world ne'er rages;

"There to dream away the ages,

"Heedless of Time's turning pages,

"Only, come with me."

"Who are you?" I asked the phantom,

"I am rest from Hate and Pride.

"I am friend to king and beggar,

"I am Alpha and Omega,

"I was councilor to Hagar

"But men call me suicide."

I was weary of tide breasting,

Weary of the world's behesting,

And I lusted for the resting

As a lover for his bride.

And my soul tugged at its moorings

And it whispered, "Set me free.

"I am weary of this battle,

"Of this world of human cattle,

"All this dreary noise and prattle.

"This you owe to me."

Long I sat and long I pondered,

On the life that I had squandered,

O'er the paths that I had wandered

Never free.

In the shadow panorama

Passed life's struggles and its fray.

And my soul tugged with new vigor,

Huger grew the phantom's figure,

As I slowly tugged the trigger,

Saw the world fade swift away.

Through the fogs old Time came striding,

Radiant clouds were 'bout me riding,

As my soul went gliding, gliding,

From the shadow into day.

That Women May Sing of Us

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I have felt their eyes upon me,

Searing my soul with their burning,

I have known their hard hands on me

Vibrant with deep locked yearning.

Why did their hands grow cold

As they slid along my thighs?

And the fires so fierce and old

Turn to ashes in their eyes?

Thor

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I stand

Back of the North Wind

My hand

Holds the tide’s reins;

My brand

Flashes amid the stars;

I stand

Back of the North Wind.

Tides

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I am weary of birth and battle,

Seasons and Time and tide,

Of the ocean's empty rattle.

And the woman at my side.

I am weary of pain and revel,

And eyes that glitter or weep;

I will sell my soul to the Devil

For a thousand years of sleep.

Then never a dream shall haunt me,

And never a star shall rise,

Nor a shadow come to daunt me

In the blackness over my eyes.

There shall be no name or number

Of the seasons over me;

I shall know the tides of slumber

As a sunken ship, the sea.

And when I shall wake hereafter,

And the Devil comes for his gain,

I will crush him with crimson laughter

And turn to my sleep again.

To a Roman Woman

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