Rivers, raging rivers, dams bursting
In wild symphonies of clattering foam; white spray
Decks the shores, and leaping water
Plays upon the trees, strokes the idle banks,
Seduced, reflects the tattered sky:

A gleam of sunlight streaks
Through the heavens, like an arrow
Drawn to Hades’ breast:
Lest infinite gleaming surge the deep waters and flame
The fleeting fumes of life so like a breath, the red
Begins to crawl and creep; it slides in snakes
-- Hissing, slithering, coagulating en masse, a giant mass
Of a thousand snakes.

Now a cry rings out through the air
And a solitary phantom glides upon the waters:
The master of men’s making, he dips the streams
A brush of blue and lushes blaze upon her eyes
To make men blush and dream --

The soft, white, steady face
Flames on all the bannisters of memory,
And tattered balconies, the smoking edifice of rock
Strikes shadows on the earth;

Her white white skin
Traces the curve of voluptuous pears – she bites
And glittering juice peaches down her lips, below
The turmoil fights, the turmoil

Of nature unfurling from trumpets like a symphony
And clashing in the weary dawn, while the sky
Stretches out across her face, stretches out
Like a long rash or a sore or some burst
Of ecstatic creation, wounding and ebbing, gleaming
In the rivers of dark-flowing blood, and eating
Lotus-lips of wine:

The river flows to Hades, down to ebb and end.