Page:Betelguese, a trip through hell.djvu/23

 ARESSED by crystal dews and light

Beyond the realm of scale and fin,

Incarian Thought flits Fancy wings

To hazards where a crimson urn

Makes scarlet this eternal height

Of sunless suns and reigning sin,—

Flame-decked this plain of warring kings

Where poisoned fumes and beacons burn! And thro' the hyoids, huge and red,

Past portals black and guidons bright

To onyx lees and opal sands,

The Cyclopean vaults of dwale,

And cavern'd shapes that Typhon bled,

Greet each wand'ring spectre's sight; Where pixies dance on wind-blown strands,

Lurke gyte incubi in a hall.

Here, then, reigns gyving, batter'd Doom! Where shadows vague and coffined light,