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 ASTROPHOBOS




   In the Midnight heaven's burning
   Through the ethereal deeps afar
   Once I watch'd with restless yearning
   An alluring aureate star;
   Ev'ry eve aloft returning
   Gleaming nigh the Arctic Car.


   Mystic waves of beauty blended
   With the gorgeous golden rays
   Phantasies of bliss descended
   In a myrrh'd Elysian haze.
   In the lyre-born chords extended
   Harmonies of Lydian lays.


   And (thought I) lies scenes of pleasure,
   Where the free and blessed dwell,
   And each moment bears a treasure,
   Freighted with the lotos-spell,
   And there floats a liquid measure
   From the lute of Israfel.


   There (I told myself) were shining
   Worlds of happiness unknown,
   Peace and Innocence entwining
   By the Crowned Virtue's throne;
   Men of light, their thoughts refining
   Purer, fairer, than my own.


   Thus I mus'd when o'er the vision
   Crept a red delirious change;
   Hope dissolving to derision,
   Beauty to distortion strange;
   Hymnic chords in weird collision,
   Spectral sights in endless range....


   Crimson burn'd the star of madness
   As behind the beams I peer'd;
   All was woe that seem'd but gladness
   Ere my gaze with Truth was sear'd;
   Cacodaemons, mir'd with madness,
   Through the fever'd flick'ring leer'd....


   Now I know the fiendish fable
   The the golden glitter bore;
   Now I shun the spangled sable
   That I watch'd and lov'd before;
   But the horror, set and stable,
   Haunts my soul forevermore!