O soft embalmer of ye still midnight,
   Allow me thee to adown
   Of an sort thou fancieth;
   Each holdeth its own fancy, I say -
   Yet the pleasure we partake in
   Was caus'd by the fang'd grin,
   Save!, do I for him anger hold?:
   Nay - I knew I was fey!"
   "Had I what it taketh, I would do;
   I sense - I cannot sense,
   I am - yet! I am not -
   Once I kiss'd the image
   Of the Seven Angels of Death."
   "Yet as thou so didst,
   On my lips a kiss landed,
   And with the shadow blended
   The tendermost silken mourn;
   In whic
   h the light hidden is -
   Yon Hell's brazen doors
   Wrathfully it trieth to push."
   "Then, lo! the Bleak Death,
   Serpent-like 'twixt the breasts crept:
   Hush'd with a gasp of life's breath,
   Together red tears they wept,
   And pass'd the procession of dancers dead -
   As in darkness were we lock'd in wed."
   "Hush'd with a gasp of life's breath,
   Together red tears we wept - in vain,
   And pass'd the procession of dancers dead -
   As in darkness were we lock'd in wed:
   I kiss'd the Seven Angels of Death."
   "And Hell open'd its doors,
   Yet what was 'fore my eyes
   But if not the brightest light."
   "Yet what was 'fore my eyes
   But if not the brightest light."