| |
(From Lot’s Wife, 1890)
HERE rose the reeking altar-grees of Bel, | |
| And Yem, the king of the exalted gods, | |
| And Bar, the hero of all heroes, stood | |
| In lustrous bronze beside all potent Nin, | |
| With Bita, king of oceans and of fish, | 5 |
| And Anu, holier than the holy stars. | |
| |
| Here reigned the great terror-dealing Beltis, | |
| The pure, impeccable and beauteous goddess, | |
| And in the perfumed temple’s gloom before her | |
| Maidens would swoon in holy prostitution, | 10 |
| Adoring her fecundity and beauty, | |
| Filling the temple with their sighs of rapture, | |
| Low and delicious like the dove’s soft cooing. | |
| Here would they wait to lure the idle passer, | |
| Tempting his glance by bare and fragrant bosoms, | 15 |
| Calling upon their goddess and Sheruba, | |
| Divine Ishtàr, and lily-limbed Anuta, | |
| To make their flesh a love-light and a wonder, | |
| To win the timorous stranger and the passer. | |
| Their languid limbs were radiant with jewels; | 20 |
| Their thighs were smeared with warm, voluptuous ointments, | |
| And tiars of gold coin amid their tresses | |
| Shone in the gloom like the fond eyes of angels. | |
| They smiled and languished in their lustful dreaming, | |
| Watching their eyes flash in their copper mirrors, | 25 |
| Beautiful, redolent, supple-limbed and tempting, | |
| Carelessly tapping on their noisy tabrets, | |
| Screened by the goddess in the temple’s arches, | |
| Yearning for some sweet stripling of the city, | |
| Or the grave, palm-oiled warriors of Gomorrah, | 30 |
| And, as they toyed with gold and silver couches, | |
| Prayed unto Hea to relieve and send them | |
| Some dainty zonah, some delicious zonah, | |
| Who, lacking lovers, would with joy caress them, | |
| Ay, love them sweetlier for lacking lovers. | 35 |
| |
| Within Ashur’s colossal almug temple, | |
| Around the holy altar sacrificial, | |
| Drowsy with cassia fumes and stringent spices, | |
| The heady nekoth, the sweet smell of heaven, | |
| Lying and dozing with the sacred serpents, | 40 |
| Listening to eunuchs idly thrum the viol, | |
| Nodding their chins upon their tuneless nebels, | |
| Linger the chosen lovers of the altar. | |
| Perfumed and supple, in a gaudy raiment, | |
| Oiled to the beard and like fresh lilies fragrant, | 45 |
| Drenched with basam, and cinnamon’s sweet juices, | |
| Praying to Anu to secure them lovers; | |
| Lovers who would reward their warm caresses | |
| With costly gifts of onycha and ointment; | |
| Lovers who lavish galbanum in plenty, | 50 |
| When cloyed and satisfied with their embracing, | |
| And they to all will amorously pander, | |
| Being of love’s mysterious and strange passions | |
| The slaves, the chosen and the perfect masters. | |
| |
