The Lover In Hell

Eternally the choking steam goes up     From the black pools of seething oil....          How merry     Those little devils are! They've stolen the pitchfork     From Bel, there, as he slept... Look! -- oh look, look!     They've got at Nero! Oh it isn't fair!     Lord, how he squeals! Stop it... it's, well -- indecent!     But funny!... See, Bel's waked. They'll catch it now!     ... Eternally that stifling reek arises,     Blotting the dome with smoky, terrible towers,     Black, strangling trees, whispering obscene things     Amongst their branches, clutching with maimed hands,     Or oozing slowly, like blind tentacles     Up to the gates; higher than that heaped brick     Man piled to smite the sun. And all around     Are devils. One can laugh... but that hunched shape     The face one stone, like those Assyrian kings!     One sees in carvings, watching men flayed red     Horribly laughable in leaps and writhes;     That face -- utterly evil, clouded round     With evil like a smoke -- it turns smiles sour!     ... And Nero there, the flabby cheeks astrain     And sweating agony... long agony...     Imperishable, unappeasable     For ever... well... it droops the mouth. Till I     Look up.     There's one blue patch no smoke dares touch.     Sky, clear, ineffable, alive with light,     Always the same...     Before, I never knew     Rest and green peace.     She stands there in the sun.     ... It seems so quaint she should have long gold wings.     I never have got used -- folded across     Her breast, or fluttering with fierce, pure light,     Like shaken steel. Her crown too. Well, it's queer!     And then she never cared much for the harp     On earth. Here, though...      She is all peace, all quiet,     All passionate desires, the eloquent thunder     Of new, glad suns, shouting aloud for joy,     Over fresh worlds and clean, trampling the air     Like stooping hawks, to the long wind of horns,     Flung from the bastions of Eternity...     And she is the low lake, drowsy and gentle,     And good words spoken from the tongues of friends,     And calmness in the evening, and deep thoughts,     Falling like dreams from the stars' solemn mouths.     All these.     They said she was unfaithful once.     Or I remembered it -- and so, for that,     I lie here, I suppose. Yes, so they said.     You see she is so troubled, looking down,     Sorrowing deeply for my torments. I     Of course, feel nothing while I see her -- save     That sometimes when I think the matter out,     And what earth-people said of us, of her,     It seems as if I must be, here, in heaven,     And she --     ... Then I grow proud; and suddenly     There comes a splatter of oil against my skin,     Hurting this time. And I forget my pride:     And my face writhes.     Some day the little ladder     Of white words that I build up, up, to her     May fetch me out. Meanwhile it isn't bad....     But what a sense of humor God must have!