[Dedicated to Frank Harris, editor of Vanity Fair]
On the black night, beneath the winter moon,
I clothed me in the limbs of Codia,
Swooning my soul out into her red throat,
So that the glimmer of our skins, the tune
Of our ripe rhythm, seemed the hideous play
Of death-worms crawling on a corpse,afloat
With life that takes its thirst
Only from things accurst.
Closer than Clodia's clasp, Death had me down
To his black heart, and fed upon my breath,
So that we seemed a stillness -whiter than
The stars, more silent than the stars, a crown
Of Stars ! For in the icy kiss of death
I found that God that is denied to man
So long as love and thought
And life avail him aught