Of Nameless Generations do Tell How they Followed a Lunar Gleaming In Mysty Backlands would they Dwell In Caves Colossal, in Earth Unredeeming.
I
Now, oh initiate, listen ye well, Nightly would they crouch without lantern Shadowed from their brow to their chin Daily in sorrel earth 'neath old Saturn Bewailed they the loss of their kin. They would call out to Orcus on his dread throne, All hooded and whispering low In defiance would they pile bone after bone On the forlorn and hissing plateau. Devoted only to ripples of a shuddering dream from the stones they would throw into Destiny's stream.
II
Such fainthearted lustrations ye pale falciform moon! When came I, Oh initiate, brazen mantel of eye Speaking Saintly Revelations at the Zenith of noon To save this Generation from its time-blasted doom: "Behold azure Azrael in acronycal light 'Alas' does he grumble in labourless plight Lazarus unveils him but a gypsy to some and the bogberry moon how quickly does run, from burning Truth full faced in safflower sun!" (I undertook to loose them of Mortality's chain Unknowing the hoary root of their melancholy pain).
III
One among them, "Poet" was he called, who persecuted me like Herod's Descent! One amidst them, accursed was enthralled, to Falsity, Even pharoahs Repent! "You! Proud Son of Hyperion's Domain, Tho' your God waxes whilst the old ones wane, Still I to Night am heralding Thane And her binding constellations twelve, So long as Night shall clash with orthodox Day, And shadowy fogs call forth the fey, The Nameless Legions shall thunder the plain, Now be ye quick to thine stony bane! (Spewed he these words toward hell so bent, That to his own Rhadamanthine judges went!)
IV
No attonement the Nameless Generation needed As they gathered and crushed me with merciless stone "No Fear, No Law of God is heeded!" were the Saint's bloody words of Apocalyptic tone. Once traded by Judas for but a pallion so cold I would not stay the stones and see the Savior the sold!
V
How transfixed was this man to the cold yawning land Caught on the rocks, blazing in Ghost, Unburied, left on that Life-Ripping sand! Reviled by a myriad of Ascension Day Adonises, Began the Coronation in which the Saint astonishes, Commenced the ceremony with a wonderous game, We hunted a beast of notorious claim, Brows garlanded by stars of Corona by name, Rode I with the Christ over cliff and knotty crag, As we hunted that ever elusive white Stag!
VI
The Poet irreverent for Forty did tread Into the hinter and threshold of Earth, Asking "Wither, Wither, Oh blind and dead, What lady with folly shall I bless and bewed?" Entombing him horribly in infidel birth, was delight and devotion to sweat-sounding verse. In league with witches and ungodly lore, Oh what blind notions did he give succour!
VII
Marching further, further did they roam even more Till stood they all at the Void's wailing shore Now ensorcell their souls did that opaque pit So followed they close her dispassionate verge and haunting sin did they unwittingly knit
for they knew my gospel, the dooms of holy lore:
So nameless must they wander, wander evermore