Alphonso of Castle

I, Alphonso, live and learn,
Seeing Nature go astern.
Things deteriorate in kind;
Lemons run to leaves and rind;
Meagre crop of figs and limes;
Shorter days and harder times.
Flowering April cools and dies
In the insufficient skies.
Imps, at high midsummer, blot
Half the sun's disk with a spot;
'T will not now avail to tan
Orange cheek or skin of man.
Roses bleach, the goats are dry,
Lisbon quakes, the people cry.
Yon pale, scrawny fisher fools,
Gaunt as bitterns in the pools,
Are no brothers of my blood;--
They discredit Adamhood.
Eyes of gods! ye must have seen,
O'er your ramparts as ye lean,
The general debility;
Of genius the sterility;
Mighty projects countermanded;
Rash ambition, brokenhanded;
Puny man and scentless rose
Tormenting Pan to double the dose.
Rebuild or ruin: either fill
Of vital force the wasted rill,
Or tumble all again in heap
To weltering Chaos and to sleep.

Say, Seigniors, are the old Niles dry,
Which fed the veins of earth and sky,
That mortals miss the loyal heats,
Which drove them erst to social feats;
Now, to a savage selfness grown,
Think nature barely serves for one;
With science poorly mask their hurt;
And vex the gods with question pert,
Immensely curious whether you
Still are rulers, or Mildew?

Masters, I'm in pain with you;
Masters, I'll be plain with you;
In my palace of Castile,
I, a king, for kings can feel.
There my thoughts the matter roll,
And solve and oft resolve the whole.
And, for I'm styled Alphonse the Wise,
Ye shall not fail for sound advice.
Before ye want a drop of rain,
Hear the sentiment of Spain.

You have tried famine: no more try it;
Ply us now with a full diet;
Teach your pupils now with plenty,
For one sun supply us twenty.
I have thought it thoroughly over,--
State of hermit, state of lover;
We must have society,
We cannot spare variety.
Hear you, then, celestial fellows!
Fits not to be overzealous;
Steads not to work on the clean jump,
Nor wine nor brains perpetual pump.
Men and gods are too extense;
Could you slacken and condense?
Your rank overgrowths reduce
Till your kinds abound with juice?
Earth, crowded, cries,'Too many men!'
My counsel is, kill nine in ten,
And bestow the shares of all
On the remnant decimal.
Add their nine lives to this cat;
Stuff their nine brains in one hat;
Make his frame and forces square
With the labors he must dare;
Thatch his flesh, and even his years
With the marble which he rears.
There, growing slowly old at ease
No faster than his planted trees,
He may, by warrant of his age,
In schemes of broader scope engage.
So shall ye have a man of the sphere
Fit to grace the solar year.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Spleen

I'm like some king in whose corrupted veins
Flows agèd blood; who rules a land of rains;
Who, young in years, is old in all distress;
Who flees good counsel to find weariness
Among his dogs and playthings, who is stirred
Neither by hunting-hound nor hunting-bird;
Whose weary face emotion moves no more
E'en when his people die before his door.
His favourite Jester's most fantastic wile
Upon that sick, cruel face can raise no smile;
The courtly dames, to whom all kings are good,
Can lighten this young skeleton's dull mood
No more with shameless toilets. In his gloom
Even his lilied bed becomes a tomb.
The sage who takes his gold essays in vain
To purge away the old corrupted strain,
His baths of blood, that in the days of old
The Romans used when their hot blood grew cold,
Will never warm this dead man's bloodless pains,
For green Lethean water fills his veins.

Charles Baudelaire

Destiny

That you are fair or wise is vain,
Or strong, or rich, or generous;
You must add the untaught strain
That sheds beauty on the rose.
There's a melody born of melody,
Which melts the World into a sea.
Toil could never compass it;
Art its height could never hit;
It came never out of wit;
But a music music-born
Well may Jove and Juno scorn.
Thy beauty, if it lack the fire
Which drives me mad with sweet desire,
What boots it? What the soldier's mail,
Unless he conquer and prevail?
What all the goods thy pride which lift,
If thou pine for another's gift?
Alas! that one is born in blight,
Victim of perpetual slight:
When thou lookest on his face,
Thy heart saith,'Brother, go thy ways!
None shall ask thee what thou doest,
Or care a rush for what thou knowest,
Or listen when thou repliest,
Or remember where thou liest,
Or how thy supper is sodden;'
And another is born
To make the sun forgotten.
Surely he carries a talisman
Under his tongue;
Broad his shoulders are and strong;
And his eye is scornful,
Threatening and young.
I hold it of little matter
Whether your jewel be of pure water,
A rose diamond or a white,
But whether it dazzle me with light.
I care not how you are dressed,
In coarsest weeds or in the best;
Nor whether your name is base or brave:
Nor for the fashion of your behavior;
But whether you charm me,
Bid my bread feed and my fire warm me
And dress up Nature in your favor.
One thing is forever good;
That one thing is Success,--
Dear to the Eumenides,
And to all the heavenly brood.
Who bides at home, nor looks abroad,
Carries the eagles, and masters the sword.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Flood II

and her hallway
moves
like the ocean
moves
and her hallway
moves
like the sea
like the sea

She says no no no
no harm will come
your way
She says bring
it on down,
bring on the
wave
She says: nobody done no harm
Grace of God and raise your arms
She says: face it and
it's a place to stay
This, this is the way it was
This, this is the way it is
When the water come
rushing, rushing in
She says
She says anytime
Raise your arms
Flood
And her hallway
Like...

Like...

Like a million
voices call my name
Like a million voices calling
Not now, not never again...
Sitting here now in
this bar for hours
Strange men rent strange flowers
Seconds to the drop
but it feels like
hours and I
Think I'm going to...going to...

This, this is the way it was
This, this is the way it is

When the water come
rushing, rushing in

She says..
She says anytime
Raise your arms
Flood!

And her hallway...

She says..
She says anytime
Raise your arms!
Flood

And her hallway...

As the water come rushing in
Like the sea
As the water come rushing over

Dream of the flood

In a flood of your
tears, in sackcloth
And ashes and ashes
And ashes and ashes
And ashes and ashes
And ashes and ashes and lies...

As the water come
rushing in, rushing in

At the head of the river
At the source of the sea
And her hallway...
Like...
Flood...


Andrew Eldritch (1987)

from Poemata Minora, Volume II

On the Ruin of Rome

Low dost thou lie, O Rome, neath the foot of the Teuton
Slaves are thy men, and bent to the will of thy conqueror:
Wither hath gone, great city, the race that gave law to all nations,
Subdu’d the east and the west, and made them bow down to thy consuls.
Knew not defeat, but gave it to all who attack’d thee?

Dead! and replac’d by these wretches who cower in confusion
Dead! They who gave us this empire to guard and to live in
Rome, thou didst fall from thy pow’r with the proud race that made thee,
And we, base Italians, enjoy’d what we could not have builded.

H. P. Lovecraft

Mr. Eliot’s Sunday Morning Service

Look, look, master, here comes two religious caterpillars
The Jew of Malta.


POLYPHILOPROGENITIVE
The sapient sutlers of the Lord
Drift across the window-panes.
In the beginning was the Word.

In the beginning was the Word.
Superfetation of TÓ ÉV,
And at the mensual turn of time
Produced enervate Origen.

A painter of the Umbrian school
Designed upon a gesso ground
The nimbus of the Baptized God.
The wilderness is cracked and browned

But through the water pale and thin
Still shine the unoffending feet
And there above the painter set
The Father and the Paraclete.

The sable presbyters approach
The avenue of penitence;
The young are red and pustular
Clutching piaculative pence.

Under the penitential gates
Sustained by staring Seraphim
Where the souls of the devout
Burn invisible and dim.

Along the garden-wall the bees
With hairy bellies pass between
The staminate and pistilate,
Blest office of the epicene.

Sweeney shifts from ham to ham
Stirring the water in his bath.
The masters of the subtle schools
Are controversial, polymath.

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965)

Flood I

and her hallway
moves
like the ocean
moves

At the head of the river
At the source of the sea

Sitting here now in this bar for hours
Trying to write it down
Fitting in hard with harder to come
Trying to fight it
Down the river there’s a ship will carry you
Down river down stream
Down the river there’s a ship will carry the
Dream
Dream of the flood
Down the river there’s a ship will carry the
Dream of the flood

And her hallway...
As the water come rushing over
As the water come rushing in
As the water come rushing over
Flood...flood...

Push the glass, stain the glass
Push the writer to the wall
It may come but it will pass
Some say we will fall
Dream of the flood...
Flood...

And her hallway...

Oh, maybe, in terms of surrender,
On a backcloth of lashes and eyes
In a flood of your tears, in sackcloth
And ashes and ashes and ashes and ashes
And ashes and ashes and lies...

And her hallway...
Like...
As the water come rushing in
As the water come rushing over

Sitting here now in this bar for hours
While these strange men rent strange flowers
I’ll be picking up your petals in another few hours
In the metal and blood, in the scent and mascara
On a backcloth of lashes and stars
In a flood of your tears, in sackcloth
And ashes and ashes and secondhand passion
And stolen guitars

And her hallway...
As the water come rushing in
(like the sea)
As the water come rushing over
(dream of the flood)
In a flood of your tears, in sackcloth
And ashes and ashes
And ashes and ashes
And ashes and ashes
And ashes and ashes and lies...

As the water come rushing in, rushing in

At the head of the river
At the source of the sea

And her hallway...
Like...

Flood...

Andrew Eldritch