LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. *579* Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius The Three Sphinxes and Other Poems George Sylvester Viereck HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY GIRARD, KANSAS Copyright, 1907, by Moffat, Yard and Company. Copyright, 1912, by Moffat, Yard and Company. Copyright, 1916, by Mitchell Kennerley. Copyright, 1924, by George Sylvester Viereck. [Other selections from Mr. Viereck’s poetry appear in the Haldeman-Julius Pocket Series under the title “The Haunted House and Other Poems,” No. 578.] PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Table of Contents The Poet Psycho-Analyzes Himself Poems Slaves Iron Passion The Three Sphinxes The Cynic’s Credo The Ghost of Oscar Wilde The Parrot The Candle and the Flame A Ballad of King David Benediction Spring A Vision of Man Inhibition The Protozoan The Plaint of Eve The Conqueror The Winners Jesus in New England The Ballad of the Golden Boy The Magic City The Challenge The Pilgrim Attar of Song The Buried City Triumphatrix At Nightfall Finale The Love Seal Respite Dr. Faust’s Descent from Heaven Man to His Maker THE POET PSYCHO-ANALYZES HIMSELF This volume, like its predecessor, “The Haunted House, and Other Poems,” No. 578, contains selections from “Nineveh and Other Poems,” “The Candle and the Flame,” “Songs of Armageddon,” in addition to a number of poems not previously published in book form. The second volume embraces a number of lyric ballads, being on the whole less intensely personal, if no less intensely passionate than volume one. However, such differences are superficial. Wherever we touch a book, we touch a man. If we but search an author, we always discover a master key! Every manifestation of the Life Force is a confession. It is impossible to write a treatise on radio without revealing one’s self. The libido, however disguised, will always assert itself. It was my original intention to divide my poetry into certain well defined psychological groups. There are clusters of thought and emotions, “complexes,” to use the vocabulary of psycho-analysis, which seem to occur again and again in my verse. Eros and Jesus, Lilith and Eve, constitute my chief lyric “complexes.” Almost every poem owes its inspiration to one of these four fundamental types. However, no symbol is entirely adequate. At every step the complexes grow more complex. Frequently one merges into the other. “The Three Sphinxes” visualizes the conflict between Jesus and Eros, between heavenly and earthly love; between Lilith and Eve, love, sweetly human, and “woman wailing for her demon lover.” The antagonism between Eros and Jesus appears in “Spring”: an attempt to synthesize the two conceptions enlivens the finale of “Jesus in New England.”