Of maidens that the men forswear, Of templed vaults now stiff in cold. And when a dim, unholy tomb, Wreathes odours damp and vapours strong-- Heirs of the Doomed! as savage domes Drip palsied sweat and carnal howls Assail the stationed halls of gloom, Where imps and devils march along Beside a monarch's crumbling bones As witches don their filthy cowls And rant their sins thro' whistling halls, Shake women fists at fleeing souls And wail for bâtard children dead; Whilst quickly from the burning dust Ascends an oath that storms the walls And rasps the distant mounts and shoals Until each pyre glows scarlet red, Each idol leers with wicked lust. Forth from rubies flare scented fumes As beacons glare and bubbles hiss To crimson strands and altars' glow Of burning oils in carvels deep, Where; when Torture's bloody dome looms Cold as shambling shapes of men kiss Trembling women before the show, Wraiths point to where their daughters weep. To lie in vaults and chambers cold 'Mid tombs that ghouls in hatred wrought! To sleep in dank Subjection's shard 'Mid hanuts of purple sins and shales A Thirst gyre! as bleak, untold, As ever haunted woman sought For incubi on scented sward As bleary owls and vulpine wails Rake stationed nights and seas forlorn, Until, when star-linkt domes are red, And Oceans' shells and sands grow white, Dusky isles and lights--Twins of the Gloom! Betray each soul cursed and forsworn; Or awed, at Twilights' scarlet bed, When nightshades blot the conjured light As javels vomit death and doom, Dank vapours veil the seaward flight Of Satellites gray 'gainst the night. Till, eyes in fear peer at profounds Unfathomed and, in vales unsunned, See Cyclops battling in the light, 'Mid scarlet foam and gorey sight Of bloody domes and hybrid hounds Of Titan's forges, cold, unstunned. Oh, vain each sinner's prayer of hope! Alas, alas, all thoughts of future trust! The bloody lanes of reigning Doom Are lasting tombs for souls accurst. When in a pool we lie and mope As vaulted temples rot in dust, Vague shapes and forms ascend to spell Infernal chasms of black gloom. When crested waves of billowed sea Are lashed by winds from foreign shoal, And foam-set breasts are dashed on high As silence holds the voiceless air, Unsavoury dreams haunt each lee-- The maw of Hell receives a soul! A leering fiend blinks at the sky.