I reject Love— Love and its sibillant, low-murmured lies, sweet sting of fair bodies, old meat of old Death. The boom of the red sea of lust rings dull in my ear—I have seen the waves go over many; dead, dead forever they lie in the steaming hot currents that bubble up from the mud-beds.
I reject Love— Love that has strewn millions of Me along the path I upclomb, shredded my flesh with its claws and burnt out my brains in its long searing clutch. Through that ageless black night, with my earth-itch fair full upon me, once my Eye was stabbed by a bolt from the fulgurant Light and my soul pined away from its love and grew strong in its terrible Nay.
I reject Love— Love that accouched every star in the blue, that with knout of Desire sends the young worlds grunting round and round the senescent suns. I hear swash and lave of the unimagined fulgurant Light, burning sure and serene at the Axis of things—soft swash and soft lave wrought in the great Mnemonic Cell-Soul of me!
Publication History
The Shadow-Eater [1915/17]