Betelguese Part 4

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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s are dashed on high As silence holds the voiceless air, Unsavoury dreams haunt each lee-- The maw of h.e.l.l receives a soul!

A leering fiend blinks at the sky.

Beyond the realm of rulling Care, Caressed by suns and moons most fair, We fain would hye, all wrecks, and lie In dusky forests dells and vales; Beyond the Asian skies of blue, Where sports an elf, mayhap a hare, We fain would haste, each soul, and die, Unfurl all dreams and pinioned sails, And sleep unmourned in haunts we knew, Now wracks and domes stare at each soul, Giant G.o.ddards leak a rubic foam; Blind forges hold Contagion's breath; A Morgan longs for earthly home.

'Tis so with h.e.l.l's eternal shoal Where skinks eat flesh from wenches' bone; 'Tis thus with us purloined by Death, Infernal doom that spells a moan.

Ten thousand years was Doom crown'd King; Sporadic prayers each gnarl'd one lisped; Despotic sway all subjects curs'd When h.e.l.l was new and Earth unborn: Now souls of man in torture sing, Each Idol's glyph by d.a.m.n'd one's kiss'd.

Who then shall say who is the worst, A vyper's brood or man forsworn?