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Christopher Brennan - III. The Shadow Of Lilith
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The tuberose thickens the air: a swoon 
 lies close on open`d calyx and slipt sheath 
 thro` all the garden bosom-bound beneath 
 dense night that hangs, her own perturbing moon: 
 no star: and heaven and earth, seeking their boon, 
 meet in this troubled blood whereunder seethe 
 cravings of darkling bliss whose fumes enwreathe 
 some rose of rare-reveal`d delight: oh, soon! — 
 Ay, surely near — the hour consents to bless! — 
 and nearer yet, all ways of night converge 
 in that delicious dark between her breasts 
 whom night and bloom and wayward blood confess, 
 where all the world`s desire is wild to merge 
 its multitude of single suffering nests. 

 Cloth`d now with dark alone, O rose and balm, 
 whence unto world-sear`d youth is healing boon, 
 what lures the tense dark round thy pulsing calm? 
 Or does that flood-tide of luxurious noon, 
 richly distill`d for thy sweet nutriment, 
 now traitor, hearken to some secret moon. 
 Eve`s wifely guise, her dower that Eden lent, 
 now limbeck where the enamour`d alchemist 
 invokes the rarer rose, phantom descent; 
 thy dewy essence where the suns persist 
 is alter`d by occult yet natural rite: 
 among thy leaves it was the night we kiss`d. 
 Rare ooze of odour drowns our faint delight, 
 some spilth of love that languishes unshared, 
 a rose that bleeds unseen, the heart of night; 
 whose sweetness holds us, wondering, ensnared: 
 for cunning she, the outcast, to entice 
 to wake with her, remembering how she fared 
 in times before our time, when Paradise 
 shone once, the dew-gem in her heart, and base 
 betrayal gave her to the malefice 
 that all thro` time afflicts her lonely face, 
 and all the mournful widowhood of night 
 closed round her, and the wilderness of space: 
 O bleeding rose, alone! O heart of night! 

 This is of Lilith, by her Hebrew name 
 Lady of Night: she, in the delicate frame 
 that was of woman after, did unite 
 herself with Adam in unblest delight; 
 who, uncapacious of that dreadful love, 
 begat on her not majesty, as Jove, 
 but the worm-brood of terrors unconfest 
 that chose henceforth, as their avoided nest, 
 the mire-fed writhen thicket of the mind. 
 She, monsterward from that embrace declined, 
 could change her to Chimera and inspire 
 doubt of his garden-state, exciting higher 
 the arrowy impulse to dim descried 
 o`erhuman bliss, as after, on the wide 
 way of his travail, with enticing strain 
 and hint of nameless things reveal`d, a bane 
 haunted, the fabled siren, and was seen 
 later as Lamia and Melusine, 
 and whatsoe`er of serpent-wives is feign`d, 
 or malice of the vampire-witch that drain`d 
 fresh blood of fresh-born babes, a wicked blast: 
 faces of fear, beheld along the past 
 and in the folk`s scant fireside lore misread, 
 of her that is the august and only dread, 
 close-dwelling, in the house of birth and death, 
 and closer, in the secrets of our breath - 
 or love occult, whose smile eludes our sight 
 in her flung hair that is the starry night
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