Vision of Nescience
Reading edition
Vision of Nescience
I
A vision of the night.
I started in my bed.
A finger in the night
Was placed upon my head.
A ray of corruption, blue
As in encharnel’d air
On corpses comes. I knew
A Death, a Woman there.
Delirious, knee to knee,
They drank of love like wine,
He skeleton thin, and she
Most beautiful, most divine.
He with his eyes half warm’d
Out of their wan eclipse
With lipless kisses storm’d
Upon her living lips,
And like a vulture quaff’d,
And raised his hideous head
With joy aloft, and laugh’d
Like vultures sipping blood.
The purple, fold by fold,
Fell from her, and, unseen,
The diadem of gold
By which I knew her queen.
Nor he unknown: for at
His feet the fiery brand
And freezing fetters that
Endow him with command.
And on his head a crown
Of thirsty thorns of flame
That flicker’d up and down
In words that went and came
Like God’s, ‘I am of God’;
And said, ‘Duty to me
Is duty unto God’;
And said, ‘Come unto me,
And I will give you rest.’
Then as I wonder’d, lo!
I saw the Woman waste
To nothing; and he, as tho’
Blood nourisht by her blood,
Grow grosser in the gloom
And leprous like the toad
That battens in the tomb.
And both corrupted pined.
And lo! a voice that wept,
And then a faint far wind
Of laughter; and I slept.
II
Methought the heav’ns were crusht;
A myriad angels stood;
A wind of thunder rusht
Before the feet of God.
He spake: ‘Accursèd men,
I find your earth a hell;
Show me what ye have done;
I bade ye order well.’
They said, ‘Well we have pray’d,
Lord, and for Heaven’s hope
A thousand temples made.’
And His lightning lickt them up.