Hell, Lunar and Starlit

Jean-Édouard Dargent, Les Vapeurs de la Nuit, 1899.

A Spirit of Fire drenched in gloomy tears,

Shadows dancing around the flames

Revealing sealed secrets through flickering candlelight,

Intoxicating the senses, a seduction of the evernight.

Lustfully La Luna illuminates I,

Who sheds like the Le Serpent Rouge,

And calls her fiendish lovers to blow the horn,

Unleashing a beautiful beast that is to be born.

Naked I am before the fiery lake,

Seeing the Heavens torn asunder

Where Hell is now a starlit lunar reflection

Of a kingdom of shady silhouettes seeking perfection.

The Whispering of the Stormchoir

Georges Jules Victor Clairin, La Grande Vague, 1893-1898.

As the Dawn danced with maidens and mist,

The blackened waves raged a noble war

And stormed the walls of mythical mountains,

Drowning the empty and drought fountains.

From above rained down passion and blood

Drowning Angels in a darksome flood,

As forgotten lovers of a mystic’s night

Lay waste and murder, desecrating light.

Exiled fiends rape and ruin

And Cherubs blow their ivory horns,

The saddened sound of an apocalyptic retreat

Bringing the Heavenly cavalcade, to death and defeat.

The distant Stormchoir softly whispers

The birth of a City and Palace, Temple and Shrine,

As the winds blow, and Earth ordains a King

Of Pathos and Grace, for whom the stars shall sing.

Hail, the ancient Triarchy of the Lost Lovers

Of the star-lit sky, the dreamlovers’ bed,

For their land shall shine moonrisen from the frost

To embrace what was in the light, asleep and lost.