The Irremediable

I.     A Being, a Form, an Idea     Having fallen from out of the blue     Into the Stygian slough     Where no eye of the sky ever sees;     An impetuous Angel, allured     By the love of the twisted and mean,     In the depths of a nightmarish dream     Like a swimmer who struggles for shore,     Contending in wretched distress     With a whirlpool that swivels along     Singing a madman's song,     Performing its dark pirouettes;     A bewildered man, miserably     Attempting a groping escape     Out of a place full of snakes,     Lacking the lamp and the key;     A damned soul fumbling down steps     Of an infinite stair without rails     At the edge of a gulf, with a smell     Betraying the clammy depths,     Where monsters watch below,     Whose eyeballs' glowing light     Makes blacker still the night     Themselves are all they show;     An iced-in polar ship     Seized in a vice of glass,     Searching the fatal path     Of this imprisoning trip;     Pure emblems, a perfect tableau     Of an irremediable evil,     Which makes us think that the Devil     Does well what he chooses to do! II.     It's a face-to-face sombre and clear     When a heart gives its own image back!     Well of Verity, limpid and black,     Where trembles a ghastly star,     An ironic beacon, from Hell,     Torch of Satanical graces,     And a glory in consolation,     Evil aware of itself!