Poems of Madison Cawein Vol. 3 — Opium

_On reading De Quincey’s “Confessions of an Opium Eater.

”_ I seemed to stand before a temple walled From shadows and night’s unrealities;

Filled with dark music of dead memories, And voices,--lost in darkness,--deep that called.

I entered.

And beneath the dome’s high-halled Immensity one forced me to my knees Before a blackness--throned ’mid semblances And spectres--crowned with flames of emerald.

Then, lo!

two shapes that thundered at mine ears The names of Horror and Oblivion,-- Priests of this god,--and bade me die and dream.

Then, in the heart of Hell, a thousand years Meseemed I lay--dead!

while the iron stream Of Time beat out the seconds, one by one.