The Lover in Hell
Eternally the choking steam goes upFrom the black pools of seething oil…How merryThose little devils are! They’ve stolen the pitchforkFrom Bel, there, as he slept… Look!—oh look, look!They’ve got at Nero! Oh it isn’t fair!Lord, how he squeals! Stop it… it’s, well—indecent!But funny!… See, Bel’s waked. They’ll catch it now!
… Eternally that stifling reek arises,Blotting the dome with smoky, terrible towers,Black, strangling trees, whispering obscene thingsAmongst their branches, clutching with maimed hands,Or oozing slowly, like blind tentaclesUp to the gates; higher than that heaped brickMan piled to smite the sun. And all aroundAre devils. One can laugh… but that hunched shapeThe face one stone, like those Assyrian kings!One sees in carvings, watching men flayed redHorribly laughable in leaps and writhes;That face—utterly evil, clouded roundWith evil like a smoke—it turns smiles sour!… And Nero there, the flabby cheeks astrainAnd sweating agony… long agony…Imperishable, unappeasableFor ever… well… it droops the mouth. Till ILook up.There’s one blue patch no smoke dares touch.Sky, clear, ineffable, alive with light,Always the same…Before, I never knewRest and green peace.She stands there in the sun.… It seems so quaint she should have long gold wings.I never have got used—folded acrossHer breast, or fluttering with fierce, pure light,Like shaken steel. Her crown too. Well, it’s queer!And then she never cared much for the harpOn earth. Here, though…She is all peace, all quiet,All passionate desires, the eloquent thunderOf new, glad suns, shouting aloud for joy,Over fresh worlds and clean, trampling the airLike stooping hawks, to the long wind of horns,Flung from the bastions of Eternity…And she is the low lake, drowsy and gentle,And good words spoken from the tongues of friends,And calmness in the evening, and deep thoughts,Falling like dreams from the stars’ solemn mouths.All these.They said she was unfaithful once.Or I remembered it—and so, for that,I lie here, I suppose. Yes, so they said.You see she is so troubled, looking down,Sorrowing deeply for my torments. IOf course, feel nothing while I see her—saveThat sometimes when I think the matter out,And what earth-people said of us, of her,It seems as if I must be, here, in heaven,And she—… Then I grow proud; and suddenlyThere comes a splatter of oil against my skin,Hurting this time. And I forget my pride:And my face writhes.Some day the little ladderOf white words that I build up, up, to herMay fetch me out. Meanwhile it isn’t bad…
But what a sense of humor God must have!