Beyond the ring and roll of hell-- And spiral lofts of quartz and gold-- We skirr upon the crutch of haste And cleave the abyss, cold and bleak. There jejune fossils lie to tell Of pleiocene days' garneréd fold; Gray bones that pierce this weird waste Lie mounted on a torrid peak; Principalities of the past, Lie scatter'd in the mildewed dust; Serai's built in ages gone, Now crumble at a sound, a voice. And Boulders that the Djinnee cast As Vengeance swirl'd the heated dust, Now rock as devils rasp a son, And vampyres dance round and round. And where a dim, unstudded dome Leak odours strong and palsied light-- Twins of the Gloom! as some mad soul Assails Typhon's battling walls, A glowing fire of this home Of deadly dews and poisoned night, Bathes monstrous this untower'd shoal. Convulsed with fear as aisles and halls Roar like giant cauldrons mad for gore, Icarian gumps and devils bold, Assault each marshalléd mount and scree. Then spectacles greet us again Upon this shadowed, foreign shore: A pond'rous dwang of virgin gold, Is filched from altars that we see, Just as the tomb-sweats pour like rain. And distant ghauts where jazels burn,-- (A burning tomb where hissing oils Drip on a flayed and bottled wench That some abhorrent spawn of death Filched from the wrack of Terror's urn As stagnent breath unwinds its coils) Spout uncoped shard unto a bench Where sights of men-wrecks gasp for breath, Whilst quickly from a bowelless whelp Drop ghastly stones of scarlet hue That brazen imps hurl thro' the air At sobbing wraiths and furrowed souls, Wrought by a fiend and conjured skelp As men and women hold a pew Within a turgid, acrid lair,-- Infernal aisles of yawning shoals! T'ward cyphers bright and terrible, Where Doom sits poised as Satan yawns,-- Each Vulture's home and arid shoal! We hurl a curse and damn the hordes That call each monster horrible. Then craftily he moves his pawns (Whenas a moan escapes each soul) As bleary sons of noble lords Sway twin censers' fumes in silence, Until in myrtle groves we see A blazing arch where agate eyes Doth peer malignly from a crypt Thro' turbid phials of violence,-- A scene of impish sorcery! Where, in furbished chambers there lies-- As vypers write on evil script The ghastly deeds that sinners wrought-- A glow-worm's fagot that arrays Dim shapes of souls of men that were. And cyphers nights of doomes to be, Till flaring pyres and yon red ghaut-- So monstrous bright that some one prays-- And Vizy's carvel starts to stir, Shape abhorrent signs on each lee.