PSALM OF ASPHODEL

Unliving, I through living mortals walk,

This dim-browed earth; an ageless shadow I,

Hunting the first lost spark, and bearing still

The broken circuit of a man undone.

My soul drank deep from out the cavern lake,

And strayed beyond the region of the blest.

The glow of watchful eyes lay veiled and close

Inside the dank House of Aïdès below.

Then all the weight of time unloosed its hold.

Clad in the plumes of statue-night, I moved,

A dream across the fields of asphodel.

My drowsiness, far o’er that echoing sea,

Upborne, like a slow dragon’s languid breath,

Through shadowed, twin-doored gates I flew at last

Down to a guilt-world, furnace-hot with blame.

In all my being raving takes her round,

A two-edged blade, keen-hilted at both ends,

Inheritance of long-shatter’d spirit,

Torn from the dire seal that once kept Chaos.

Tied fast within delusion’s clinging mesh;

Layer’d as wav’ring visions on blacksmith’s fire,

Where monster grapples demon, coil with coil,

While gods, in age-forgotten iron pent,

Make war with their own counsels and themselves.

Let now the wan god number all my shards,

And gather, from beneath this fallen heap,

What sober core lies buried in this wreck,

That out of fragments, weighed in hidden scales,

He may discern pure splend'r of grief and fame.