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I 

In the tree, the soft breeze cradles 
The viper that I wear. 
A smile, where the fang strikes 
Appetites into flame, 
Drifts, like a prowler, through the Garden, 
And my emerald mask unwinds 
A split tongue into the blue. . . 
A beast, a cunning beast, 
And my venom is vile—but it leaves 
Wise hemlock far behind! 

II 

Sweet moments of pleasure. . . . But mortals, 
Tremble—I am strong! 
When I want something huge, I just yawn, 
And my jaws do the rest! 
Now the azure splendors of sky 
Arouse this old reptile, swaddled 
In Nature’s innocence. 
Come to me, brainless race! 
I’m coiled and lively, here 
To match necessities. 

III

Sun, sun! . . . Superb mistake! 
Disguising death, O Sun, 
In a pavilion, blue 
And amber, where flowers hold court. 
You, sublime henchman, 
Trap of my traps—with your 
Opaque delights you keep 
All spirits from the truth: 
The universe is merely a flaw 
In perfect Nothingness.

IV 

Great Star, you give the call
To life, and lend your fires, 
But you round our days with dreams
Of phantom landscapes, where
We see the sweet, obscure 
Illusion of the soul. 
And yet I’ve always loved 
The lie you stretch across 
The absolute, O king 
Of shadows made of flame! 

V 

Pour me your savage fire 
When idleness burns me cold,
While I dream of some misfortune,
As all constrictors will. . . 
This quaint place, where my flesh
Parts and rejoins, how precious!
My fury ripens here. 
As I rouse and warm it 
I loll, and through my coils
My meditation murmurs . . . 

VI 

O Vanity! First Cause! 
Reigning in the Heavens, you spoke
And lit the universe. 
But God, as if he grew tired
Of his private spectacle, 
Dissolved it flat, this chaste,
Perfect eternity, 
And brought himself to squander
His Principle in effects, 
His Unity in stars. 

VII 

Heaven his error! Time his ruin!
Animal chaos, gaping! . . .
What a catastrophe glimmers
In place of nothingness. . . .
But his first Word of Words
Was me! . . . The grandest star
Ordained by the mad maker.
I am! . . . I shall be! . . . I light
His decadence with all 
The fires of the Seducer.

VIII 

Radiant object of my hate, 
I loved you to distraction, 
And you, in hell’s debt, should have given 
The empire to that lover. 
Look in my shadow-glass! 
When you saw your tragic pose, 
The pride of my dark mirror, 
Your torment was so deep 
That your breath upon the clay 
Was a sigh of despair! 

IX 

Absurdly, in the mud, 
You fashioned these mindless babies 
Who spend all day in singing 
The praises of Your triumphs. 
You made such pretty children! 
But as soon as they took form 
And breath, Lord Serpent hissed 
Hola! New-comers, wait! 
You’re naked as jays, and silly 
As lambs dropped into light. 

X 

In the detested image 
You were brought forth; I hate you! 
As I despise the Name 
Who created so many half-wits. 
And so I modify, 
I retouch believing hearts. 
My finger, secret and sure! 
We’ll twist these unfired clays, 
These slippery garden snakes, 
Into furious reptiles!

XI 

My boundless intellect 
Fingers, in the human soul, 
A lute of my revenge 
Made by your very hands. 
And although your Fatherhood, 
Veiled in its starry place, 
Admits but incense, still 
My abounding witchery 
Can trigger remote alarms 
To vex almighty plans. 

XII 

I go, come, glide, and plunge
Unseen in a pure heart. 
Never was a breast so frozen
That one couldn’t inject a dream.
Whoever you are, am I not
The soft conceit that rears
In your soul when it loves itself?
The basis of such favor, 
I am that matchless spice 
Found only in yourself. 

XIII 

Eve, of old, I surprised 
In her first thoughts, her lips
Half-parted to the nymphs
That roses bear in the breeze.
Perfect, she appeared to me,
Her thighs traversed with gold,
Not afraid of the sun, nor of man,
Naked to the eyes of air, 
The soul still stupid—denied
The doorway of the flesh. 

XIV 

O mass of beatitude, 
So fair you are, fit prize 
To capture the support 
Of these, the best of spirits!
For you need merely sigh 
To bring them to your lips.
The purest seek the worst,
The firmest are most bruised . . .
You’ve been awaiting me 
From whom the vampires rise! 

XV 

Yes! From my leafy perch,
Reptile with soul of a bird,
While my gab, my bantering wove
The net of tricks, I drank 
To you, O lovely clod! 
Calm, ready, fat with charms,
I dangled, with my eye 
On your red-gold tress, your nape
Mysterious and full 
Of secrets of your movement.

XVI 

I drifted like perfume, 
Like hints of an idea 
You cannot clarify: 
Treason disguised as air. 
I worried you, my dove, 
O uncommitted flesh, 
Instead of pushing you 
Headfirst into the sublime! 
I’ll have you soon, I wager. 
Already your color turns. 

XVII 

(Superb simplicity 
Requires immense attentions. 
Her transparent gazes—pride, 
Absence, and bliss—guard well 
This city of delight. 
Let’s learn to trip her, how 
By rarest art her soul 
Might be solicited; 
There lies my gift, my aim, 
The method to my end.) 

XVIII 

Now, in a blazing spray 
Let’s cast our invisible webs 
Where Eve, unoccupied, soft, 
Finds dangers she can’t see. 
Here, underneath a charge 
Of silk, this trembling prey, 
Accustomed to pure calm. . . . 
Why there’s no finer gauze, 
No thread more dim, more certain 
Than that of my design. 

XIX 

Gild, tongue! Adorn for her 
The smoothest tales you know—
Lies, innuendos, riddles, 
And whispers carved like stone! 
Use anything that prods, 
Flatters, or badgers her 
To lapse into my plans, 
To trip on the slopes that bear 
The spillways of the heavens 
Down to black reservoirs!

XX 

O what unequaled prose, 
What wit I’ve poured along 
The downy labyrinth 
Of this miraculous ear! 
And nothing’s lost, all thrives 
In undecided hearts. 
Sure triumph! if my words, 
Imploring the soul’s treasure 
Like bees invading corollas, 
Cleave to the ear of gold. 

XXI 

I whispered, “Nothing, Eve,
Is less sure than God’s word.
A flaming secret cracks
The ripeness of this fruit.
Ignore the Eternal Prude
Who damns the smallest bite.
But if your mouth can dream
Of a thirst for nectar, Eve,
This pleasure, halfway here,
Means lush eternity.” 

XXII 

She tasted my little words, 
And grew strange—she would sometimes sweep
The angels from her eyes 
And come back to my boughs. 
Subtlest of beasts, who jokes 
At your resolve, O mass 
Of treachery refined 
To whispers in the leaves. 
—It was a serious Eve 
Who listened by the branch! 

XXIII 

I said, “Soul, quiet retreat
Of all forbidden joys, 
Can you feel the enveloping love
I’ve stolen from the Father?
I have it, Heaven’s balm, 
For purposes much sweeter
Than the honeycomb. . . Take
This fruit now. . . Lift your arm!
Your precious hand was made
To gather what you want.”

XXIV 

Only an eyelid strikes 
The silence! But what sighs
From that darkened breast the Tree
Caresses with its shadow—the other
Glistening like a pistil! 
—Ssst, Ssst! It sings to me, 
And I feel the cunning coils
That wind me start to quiver,
Unraveling from the beryl 
Along my crest, toward peril! 

XXV 

Genius! O long impatience! 
At last the time has come. 
A step toward the new knowledge
Will burst from these bare feet.
Marble and gold aspire! 
These blonde supports of shade
And amber quake toward movement. . . .
She totters, the grand urn! 
About to lose the gift 
Of surface quietude. 

XXVI 

From your own diversions, yield,
Yield, body, to the baits! 
Since you long to play new parts,
Act out a circle of mimes 
Around the Tree of Death. 
Feign coming! take vague steps
As if weighed down with roses. . .
Don’t think . . . Dear body, dance!
Here pleasures will suffice 
As cause for the course of things.

XXVII

Insanely, I took up 
This empty passion—watching
The naked back, so fresh 
And perfect, shake with sin. . . .
Even now, dripping its manna
Of wisdom and illusion, 
The whole Tree of Knowledge,
Alive with visions, stirs 
Its towering trunk which plunges
Into the sun for dreams! 

XXVIII 

Grand Tree, Shadower of Heaven,
Irresistible Tree of trees, 
Pursuing, in the flaws of statues,
Their delicate nectars, and spinning
Your mazes, blind with leaves,
Where strangling shadows fade
In the sapphire distances 
Of everlasting dawn. 
Sweet ruin, perfume, or breeze,
Or dove predestinate, 

XXIX 

O Singer, secret taster 
Of the depths of gems, O bower
Of the reptile troubadour 
Who sang Eve into dreams, 
Great Soul, raging for wisdom,
As if to see better, you stretch
As your gaping summit commands,
Sending forth, in purest gold,
Stark limbs and smoky boughs,
While rooting toward the abyss, 

XXX 

You drive back the infinite
(A part of your foliage, too)
And you feel, from tomb to nest,
All Knowledge in yourself! 
But the old chess master comes,
In the glitter of dying suns,
And crawls along your branches.
His eyes disturb your treasure.
Soon there will fall some fruits
Of death, despair, disorder! 

XXXI 

Sweet snake, lulled in the blue,
I hiss, but delicately, 
Presenting to God’s glory 
The triumph of my sadness . . .
Content that in the air 
Vast hope of bitter fruits 
Maddens these sons of mud . . .
—This thirst that makes you gigantic
Exalts into Being the strange
Omnipotence of Nothing!