Sunday, May 24, 2015

Beddoes

ATTENDANT: My lord --


VARINI: What are they, sirrah?


ATTENDANT: The palace-keys.
There is a banquet in the inner room:
Shall we remove the plate?


VARINI: Leave it alone:
Wine in the cups, the spicy meats uncovered,
And the round lamps each with a star of flame
Upon their brink; let winds begot on roses,
And grey with incense, rustle through the silk
And velvet curtains: -- then set all the windows,
The doors and gates, wide open; let the wolves,
Foxes, and owls, and snakes, come in and feast ;
Let the bats nestle in the golden bowls,
The shaggy brutes stretch on the velvet couches,
The serpent twine him o'er and o'er the harp's
Delicate chords: -- to Night, and all its devils,
We do abandon this accursed house.

-- From "The Second Brother," in The Poetical Works of Thomas Lovell Beddoes. J. M Dent and Co, London, 1890.

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