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Witch-moon that turnest all the streams to blood,
I take this hazel rod, and stand, and swear
An Oath-beneath this blasted Oak and bare
That rears its agony above the flood
Whose swollen mask mutters an atheist's prayer.
What oath may stand the shock of this offence:
"There is no I, no joy, no permanence"?
Witch-moon of blood, eternal ebb and flow
Of baffled birth, in death still lurks a change;
And all the leopards in thy woods that range,
And all the vampires in their boughs that glow,
Brooding on blood-thirst-these are not so strange
And fierce as life's unfailing shower. These die,
Yet time rebears them through eternity.
Hear then the Oath, witch-moon of blood, dread moon!
Let all thy stryges and thy ghouls attend!
He that endureth even to the end
Hath sworn that Love's own corpse shall lie at noon
Even in the coffin of its hopes, and spend
All the force won by its old woe and stress
In now annihilating Nothingness.
This chapter is called Imperial Purple
and A Punic War.
COMMENTARY (ΠΒ)
The title of this chapter, and its two sub-titles, will need no explanation to readers of the classics.
This poem, inspired by Jane Cheron, is as simple as it is elegant.
The poet asks, in verse 1, How can we baffle the Three Characteristics?
In verse 2, he shows that death is impotent against life.
In verse 3, he offers the solution of the problem.
This is, to accept things as they are, and to turn your whole energies to progress on the Path.