Il a vaincu la femme belle aucœur subtil
Etalant ces bras frais et sa gorge excitante;
Il a vaincu l'enfer, il rentre dans sa tente
Avec un lourd trophée à son bras puéril.

Avec la lance qui perça le flanc suprême
Il a guéri le roi, le voici roi lui-même.
Et prêtre du très-saint trésor essentiel;

En robe d'or il adore, gloire et symbole,
Le vase pur où resplendit le sang réel,
Et, o ces voix d'enfants chantant dans la coupole.

In English there is no sonnet so beautiful, its beauty cannot be worn
away, it is as inexhaustible as a Greek marble. The hiatus in the last
line was at first a little trying, but I have learned to love it. Not in
Baudelaire nor even in Poe is there more beautiful poetry to be found.
Poe, unread and ill-understood in America and England, here, thou art an
integral part of our artistic life.

The Island o' Fay, Silence, Eleonore, were the familiar spirits of an
apartment beautiful with Manets and tapestry; Swinburne and Rossetti
were the English poets I read there; and in a golden bondage, I, a unit
in the generation they have enslaved, clanked my fetters and trailed my
golden chain, a set of stories in many various metres, to be called
"Roses of Midnight." One of the characteristics of the volume was that
daylight was banished from its pages. In the sensual lamplight of yellow
boudoirs, or the wild moonlight of centenarian forests, my fantastic
loves lived out their lives, died with the dawn which was supposed to be
an awakening to consciousness of reality.