In Slumber

The stench of stagnant waters broke my dream, Wherethrough had run, with living murmur and gleam, The Rivers four of the Earthly Paradise: From the azured flame of those effulgent skies And valleys lifting censers of vast bloom, I was drawn down into a deathlier gloom Than lies on Styx's fountain. By such light As shows the newly damned their dolorous plight, I trod the shuddering soil of that demesne Whence larvae swarmed, malignant and obscene, Like writhen mists from some Maremma reeking: Through the gross air, fell incubi went seeking Their prey that slumbered helpless; at my knee There clung the python-bodied succubi; I heard the wail of them that walked apart, Each with a suckling vampire at his heart; And, as I stumbled loathly on, the ground Was rent with noiseless thunder all around To pits that teemed with direr prodigies: Grey, headless coils, and worm-shaped infamies Unmeasured, rose above the sun that rotted Black as a corpse in heavens thick and clotted; The rusty clang and shaken soot of wings Deafened and stifled me; from pestilent springs Slime-mantled horrors boiled with fume and hiss To plunge in frothing fury down the abyss. Then, from an outmost circle of that hell, The tumbling harpies came, detestable, With beaks that in long tatters tore my breast And wove from these their crimson, wattled nest.