absinthia

Absinthia Taetra
    GREEN changed to white, emerald to an opal: nothing was changed.  
    The man let the water trickle gently into his glass, and as the green clouded,
    a mist fell away from his mind.
    Then he drank opaline.
    Memories and terrors beset him.  
    The past tore after him like a panther
    and through the blackness of the present he saw the luminous tiger eyes of the things to be.
    But he drank opaline.
    And that obscure night of the soul, and the valley of humiliation, through which he stumbled were forgotten.
    He saw blue vistas of undiscovered countries, high prospects and a quiet, caressing sea.  
    The past shed its perfume over him, to-day held his hand as it were a little child,
    and to-morrow shone like a white star: nothing was changed.
    He drank opaline.
    The man had known the obscure night of the soul, and lay even now in the valley of humiliation;
    and the tiger menace of things to be was red in the skies.  
    But for a little while he had forgotten.
    Green changed to white, emerald to an opal: nothing was changed.


-E Dowson