Opium

On reading De Quincey’s “Confessions of an Opium Eater.”

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,--deep 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.