The god who fled down with a standard yard
(Surveying with that reed which was his guard
He showed St. John the New Jerusalem;
It was a sugarcane containing rum
And hence the fire on which these works depend)
Taught and quivered strung upon the bend
An outmost crystal a recumbent flame
(He drinks all cups the tyrant could acclaim;
He still is dumb, illimitably wined,
Burns still his nose and liver for mankind)
It is an ether, such an agony.
In the thin choking air of Caucasus
He under operation lies forever
Smelling the chlorine in the chloroform.
The plains around him flood with the destroyers
Pasturing the stallions in the standing corn.
Bacchus III
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