Page:Betelguese, a trip through hell.djvu/40

32 There fungus-tapers gleam like gold

Before a ghoul-king's jeweled throne:

There, too, upon a Temple's arch,

Bivouacs a witch who scans the bed

Of buried kings and queens struck cold

And lifts her voice to splinter'd dome

To stem the brooding Djinnee march,

And with the dusk that meteors split,

She tries the figgum of her lust,

And throws her voice at portals dark,

Past burning pyres, where moaning airs

Call the help of Conjury's script;

And, ere cyphers burn in the dust

The names of new souls in this ark,

The ghosts of the dead prance in pairs.

This is the sphere of Dust and Tomb! Where Trojans struck with palsied Death

As Satan smote each cavern's fold,

And whistling heat swirl'd Circe around

The coffined slabs of Aeæa's womb,

When kingdoms fought with rasping breath