Bride of Baal

By EDGAR DANIEL KRAMER

They have left me alone in the stillness where the cold, grim shadows start,
And there is no sound in the silence save the wild, mad beat of my heart;
They have sealed up the doors of the temple and Beauty is glorified,
For here in the gloom great Baal is holding his virgin bride.

Anointed with oils and perfumes and clad in the night of my hair,
I tremble here in the shadows alone with my blade despair;
Cold are the arms that hold me and ever I softly weep
For a lad in a fragrant valley and a trysting I cannot keep.

My body is whiter than snow is, and redder than blood is my mouth;
My breasts are as soft as the breezes from the lotus groves of the south;
My hands are the white rose petals that fall in the time of dew,
But hunger and thirst are my portion, and gone is the joy I knew.

The hours are all unending, as I harken each smothered howl
That lifts to me from the blackness, where the hungry lions prowl;
They have left me alone in the darkness, where the lions have been unleashed,
And I weep in the arms of Baal—in terror of God and Beast!