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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=358645" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The House Of Dust: Part 03: 12: Witches' Sabbath</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Now, when the moon slid under the cloud<br>And the cold clear dark of starlight fell,<br>He heard in his blood the well-known bell<br>Tolling slowly in heaves of sound,<br>Slowly beating, slowly beating,<br>Shaking its pulse on the stagnant air:<br>Sometimes it swung completely round,<br>Horribly gasping as if for breath;<br>Falling down with an anguished cry . . .<br>Now the red bat, he mused, will fly;<br>Something is marked, this night, for death . . .<br>And while he mused, along his blood<br>Flew ghostly voices, remote and thin,<br>They rose in the cavern of his brain,<br>Like ghosts they died away again;<br>And hands upon his heart were laid,<br>And music upon his flesh was played,<br>Until, as he was bidden to do,<br>He walked the wood he so well knew.<br>Through the cold dew he moved his feet,<br>And heard far off, as under the earth,<br>Discordant music in shuddering tones,<br>Screams of laughter, horrible mirth,<br>Clapping of hands, and thudding of drums,<br>And the long-drawn wail of one in pain.<br>To-night, he thought, I shall die again,<br>We shall die again in the red-eyed fire<br>To meet on the edge of the wood beyond<br>With the placid gaze of fed desire . . .<br>He walked; and behind the whisper of trees,<br>In and out, one walked with him:<br>She parted the branches and peered at him,<br>Through lowered lids her two eyes burned,<br>He heard her breath, he saw her hand,<br>Wherever he turned his way, she turned:<br>Kept pace with him, now fast, now slow;<br>Moving her white knees as he moved . . .<br>This is the one I have always loved;<br>This is the one whose bat-soul comes<br>To dance with me, flesh to flesh,<br>In the starlight dance of horns and drums . . .</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The walls and roofs, the scarlet towers,<br>Sank down behind a rushing sky.<br>He heard a sweet song just begun<br>Abruptly shatter in tones and die.<br>It whirled away. Cold silence fell.<br>And again came tollings of a bell.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> * * * * *</div><div style="margin:10px 0">This air is alive with witches: the white witch rides<br>Swifter than smoke on the starlit wind.<br>In the clear darkness, while the moon hides,<br>They come like dreams, like something remembered . .<br>Let us hurry! beloved; take my hand,<br>Forget these things that trouble your eyes,<br>Forget, forget! Our flesh is changed,<br>Lighter than smoke we wreathe and rise . . .</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The cold air hisses between us . . . Beloved, beloved,<br>What was the word you said?<br>Something about clear music that sang through water . . .<br>I cannot remember. The storm-drops break on the leaves.<br>Something was lost in the darkness. Someone is dead.<br>Someone lies in the garden and grieves.<br>Look how the branches are tossed in this air,<br>Flinging their green to the earth!<br>Black clouds rush to devour the stars in the sky,<br>The moon stares down like a half-closed eye.<br>The leaves are scattered, the birds are blown,<br>Oaks crash down in the darkness,<br>We run from our windy shadows; we are running alone.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> * * * * *</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The moon was darkened: across it flew<br>The swift grey tenebrous shape he knew,<br>Like a thing of smoke it crossed the sky,<br>The witch! he said. And he heard a cry,<br>And another came, and another came,<br>And one, grown duskily red with blood,<br>Floated an instant across the moon,<br>Hung like a dull fantastic flame . . .<br>The earth has veins: they throb to-night,<br>The earth swells warm beneath my feet,<br>The tips of the trees grow red and bright,<br>The leaves are swollen, I feel them beat,<br>They press together, they push and sigh,<br>They listen to hear the great bat cry,<br>The great red bat with the woman's face . . .<br>Hurry! he said. And pace for pace<br>That other, who trod the dark with him,<br>Crushed the live leaves, reached out white hands<br>And closed her eyes, the better to see<br>The priests with claws, the lovers with hooves,<br>The fire-lit rock, the sarabands.<br>I am here! she said. The bough he broke&mdash;<br>Was it the snapping bough that spoke?<br>I am here! she said. The white thigh gleamed<br>Cold in starlight among dark leaves,<br>The head thrown backward as he had dreamed,<br>The shadowy red deep jasper mouth;<br>And the lifted hands, and the virgin breasts,<br>Passed beside him, and vanished away.<br>I am here! she cried. He answered 'Stay!'<br>And laughter arose, and near and far<br>Answering laughter rose and died . . .<br>Who is there? in the dark? he cried.<br>He stood in terror, and heard a sound<br>Of terrible hooves on the hollow ground;<br>They rushed, were still; a silence fell;<br>And he heard deep tollings of a bell.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> * * * * *</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Look beloved! Why do you hide your face?<br>Look, in the centre there, above the fire,<br>They are bearing the boy who blasphemed love!<br>They are playing a piercing music upon him<br>With a bow of living wire! . . .<br>The virgin harlot sings,<br>She leans above the beautiful anguished body,<br>And draws slow music from those strings.<br>They dance around him, they fling red roses upon him,<br>They trample him with their naked feet,<br>His cries are lost in laughter,<br>Their feet grow dark with his blood, they beat and<br> beat,<br>They dance upon him, until he cries no more . . .<br>Have we not heard that cry before?<br>Somewhere, somewhere,<br>Beside a sea, in the green evening,<br>Beneath green clouds, in a copper sky . . .<br>Was it you? was it I?<br>They have quenched the fires, they dance in the darkness,<br>The satyrs have run among them to seize and tear,<br>Look! he has caught one by the hair,<br>She screams and falls, he bears her away with him,<br>And the night grows full of whistling wings.<br>Far off, one voice, serene and sweet,<br>Rises and sings . . .</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'By the clear waters where once I died,<br>In the calm evening bright with stars. . . .'<br>Where have I heard these words? Was it you who sang them?<br>It was long ago.<br>Let us hurry, beloved! the hard hooves trample;<br>The treetops tremble and glow.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> * * * * *</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In the clear dark, on silent wings,<br>The red bat hovers beneath her moon;<br>She drops through the fragrant night, and clings<br>Fast in the shadow, with hands like claws,<br>With soft eyes closed and mouth that feeds,<br>To the young white flesh that warmly bleeds.<br>The maidens circle in dance, and raise<br>From lifting throats, a soft-sung praise;<br>Their knees and breasts are white and bare,<br>They have hung pale roses in their hair,<br>Each of them as she dances by<br>Peers at the blood with a narrowed eye.<br>See how the red wing wraps him round,<br>See how the white youth struggles in vain!<br>The weak arms writhe in a soundless pain;<br>He writhes in the soft red veiny wings,<br>But still she whispers upon him and clings. . . .<br>This is the secret feast of love,<br>Look well, look well, before it dies,<br>See how the red one trembles above,<br>See how quiet the white one lies! . . . .</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Wind through the trees. . . .and a voice is heard<br>Singing far off. The dead leaves fall. . . .<br>'By the clear waters where once I died,<br>In the calm evening bright with stars,<br>One among numberless avatars,<br>I wedded a mortal, a mortal bride,<br>And lay on the stones and gave my flesh,<br>And entered the hunger of him I loved.<br>How shall I ever escape this mesh<br>Or be from my lover's body removed?'<br>Dead leaves stream through the hurrying air<br>And the maenads dance with flying hair.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> * * * * *</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The priests with hooves, the lovers with horns,<br>Rise in the starlight, one by one,<br>They draw their knives on the spurting throats,<br>They smear the column with blood of goats,<br>They dabble the blood on hair and lips<br>And wait like stones for the moon's eclipse.<br>They stand like stones and stare at the sky<br>Where the moon leers down like a half-closed eye. . .<br>In the green moonlight still they stand<br>While wind flows over the darkened sand<br>And brood on the soft forgotten things<br>That filled their shadowy yesterdays. . . .<br>Where are the breasts, the scarlet wings? . . . .<br>They gaze at each other with troubled gaze. . . .<br>And then, as the shadow closes the moon,<br>Shout, and strike with their hooves the ground,<br>And rush through the dark, and fill the night<br>With a slowly dying clamor of sound.<br>There, where the great walls crowd the stars,<br>There, by the black wind-riven walls,<br>In a grove of twisted leafless trees. . . .<br>Who are these pilgrims, who are these,<br>These three, the one of whom stands upright,<br>While one lies weeping and one of them crawls?<br>The face that he turned was a wounded face,<br>I heard the dripping of blood on stones. . . .<br>Hooves had trampled and torn this place,<br>And the leaves were strewn with blood and bones.<br>Sometimes, I think, beneath my feet,<br>The warm earth stretches herself and sighs. . . .<br>Listen! I heard the slow heart beat. . . .<br>I will lie on this grass as a lover lies<br>And reach to the north and reach to the south<br>And seek in the darkness for her mouth.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> * * * * *</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Beloved, beloved, where the slow waves of the wind<br>Shatter pale foam among great trees,<br>Under the hurrying stars, under the heaving arches,<br>Like one whirled down under shadowy seas,<br>I run to find you, I run and cry,<br>Where are you? Where are you? It is I. It is I.<br>It is your eyes I seek, it is your windy hair,<br>Your starlight body that breathes in the darkness there.<br>Under the darkness I feel you stirring. . . .<br>Is this you? Is this you?<br>Bats in this air go whirring. . . .<br>And this soft mouth that darkly meets my mouth,<br>Is this the soft mouth I knew?<br>Darkness, and wind in the tortured trees;<br>And the patter of dew.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> * * * * *</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Dance! Dance! Dance! Dance!<br>Dance till the brain is red with speed!<br>Dance till you fall! Lift your torches!<br>Kiss your lovers until they bleed!<br>Backward I draw your anguished hair<br>Until your eyes are stretched with pain;<br>Backward I press you until you cry,<br>Your lips grow white, I kiss you again,<br>I will take a torch and set you afire,<br>I will break your body and fling it away. . . .<br>Look, you are trembling. . . .Lie still, beloved!<br>Lock your hands in my hair, and say<br>Darling! darling! darling! darling!<br>All night long till the break of day.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Is it your heart I hear beneath me. . . .<br>Or the far tolling of that tower?<br>The voices are still that cried around us. . . .<br>The woods grow still for the sacred hour.<br>Rise, white lover! the day draws near.<br>The grey trees lean to the east in fear.<br>'By the clear waters where once I died . . . .'<br>Beloved, whose voice was this that cried?<br>'By the clear waters that reach the sun<br>By the clear waves that starward run. . . .<br>I found love's body and lost his soul,<br>And crumbled in flame that should have annealed. . .<br>How shall I ever again be whole,<br>By what dark waters shall I be healed?'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Silence. . . .the red leaves, one by one,<br>Fall. Far off, the maenads run.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Silence. Beneath my naked feet<br>The veins of the red earth swell and beat.<br>The dead leaves sigh on the troubled air,<br>Far off the maenads bind their hair. . . .<br>Hurry, beloved! the day comes soon.<br>The fire is drawn from the heart of the moon.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> * * * * *</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The great bell cracks and falls at last.<br>The moon whirls out. The sky grows still.<br>Look, how the white cloud crosses the stars<br>And suddenly drops behind the hill!<br>Your eyes are placid, you smile at me,<br>We sit in the room by candle-light.<br>We peer in each other's veins and see<br>No sign of the things we saw this night.<br>Only, a song is in your ears,<br>A song you have heard, you think, in dream:<br>The song which only the demon hears,<br>In the dark forest where maenads scream . . .</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'By the clear waters where once I died . . .<br>In the calm evening bright with stars . . . '<br>What do the strange words mean? you say,&mdash;<br>And touch my hand, and turn away.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Conrad+Potter+Aiken">Conrad Potter Aiken</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=358645" data-title="The House Of Dust: Part 03: 12: Witches' Sabbath de Conrad Potter Aiken" data-description="Now, when the moon slid under the cloud
And the cold clear dark of starlight fell,
He heard in his blood the well-known bell
Tolling slowly in heaves of sound,
Slowly beating, slowly beating,
Shaking its pulse on the stagnant air:
Sometimes it swu..."></div>
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