Alternative

Who turns him from his earthly love
Must other lovers meet and prove:
Through plunging lands careened from light
Into the crimson-starred abyss,
He goes by sunken stairs, to kiss
The coal-hot lips of Baaltis
And Lilith in the nether night.


Or else, on mountains noonward-piled,
He climbs the planished walls, beguiled
By wispy, wavering spectres born
Of snow and sun; till, starkly mad
In some delirium strange and glad,
He clasps an ice-limbed oread
Upon the slippery silver horn.