We are the damned - the strain and moil
That death had washed from earthly toil
Drawn down by tides of hell, we boil
Like toads within a torrid slime.
Our sins were great - a deadly charge
And yet less heavy than our fate
We pour through hell's alembic large
Each soul transformed to vital hate
The good that in our hearts remained
By sin untainted, now is one
With vileness cankeringly ingrained
By earth and hell we stand undone.
For that which earth unfinished left
The consummation of the pit
From out the insuperable cleft
To where its lords presiding sit.
And watch with contestless sight
We burn, by double test refined
To clearest evil - purged quite
Of good or mercy from the mind.
Our souls are linked to vast despair
As to some nadir-founded rock
Where never hope descends to mock
Beyond the dip of terrene air.
We heighten to a hate that beats
In rage all impotently strong
Against the worlds that league with wrong
Whose pain each other's pain completes.
Would our gate were hands to draw
The lords of earth and hell beneath!
Would our hate were venomed teeth
To rend them through their mail of law!
Would that we might cleave with hate
The roof and base, and walls of hell
Wrench at its pillars till they fell
With ruin indiscriminate!
Immovable it stands, with springs
Of fire to tear its inward glooms
Where from, ascending high, our fumes
Are breath of incense to its kings.
