OPIUM.

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, aye 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.