The three sphinxes, and other poems

In Short

This collection is a searing, lyrical exploration of the "Life Force," a concept the poet uses to navigate the permanent conflict between the carnal and the divine. Through formal, often ornate ballads and meditations, the work examines the dual legacies of Jesus and Eros, Lilith and Eve. It is a portrait of a man obsessed with the agony of existence, the beauty of the body, and the inevitability of the grave. The book has endured as a stark, unblinking record of early 20th-century intellectual and emotional restlessness.

The Story

The arc of the collection begins with the poet’s own confession: he sees himself as a prisoner of his own biology, a "slave of his entrails." From the outset, the world is presented as a theater of struggle where a "twisted nerve" or an "obscure gland" determines one’s fate as a saint or a sinner. The poet is not interested in gentle moralizing; he is drawn to the "iron passion" that defies the quiet, wise, or tender loves of the world. He wanders through the ruins of civilizations and the graveyard of history, seeking a synthesis for his own fractured soul.

The journey takes him to the desert, where he stands before the Sphinx, representing the ancient, unanswerable riddles of human desire. He calls out to Eros and Jesus, the twin poles of his inner life, realizing that these figures are not merely distant deities but forces that animate his own blood and brain. He sees his own reflection in the legends of the past—in David’s betrayal of Jonathan, in the ghost of Oscar Wilde, and in the tragic, shifting masks of the "Golden Boy." Each poem serves as a station in this pilgrimage, a way to map the terrain of a consciousness that feels both intensely singular and linked to the "primal slime" of all living things.

As the poems progress, the poet turns his gaze toward the women who haunt his imagination—Lilith, the demon lover, and Eve, the mother of sorrow. He writes with a mixture of empathy and awe for the woman’s "thousand centuries" of suffering, acknowledging her as the one who heals the world with tears even while she is herself "crucified" by history. Yet, he is also haunted by the "inhibition" of his own mind, the spectral walls that keep him from fully possessing the beauty he desires.

In the final movements, the poet descends into the depths, confronting the "Mad Master" of life itself. He grapples with the irony of a deity who creates beauty only to destroy it with the "worm" and the "grave." He eventually reaches a state of weary, cynical acceptance, finding his only true sanctuary not in religious dogma or the promise of immortality, but in the "sweet proximities" of a loved one’s touch. The work ends with a challenge: a demand that God, if He exists, should either grant oblivion or stop the cruel game of human consciousness. It is a final act of defiance against a universe that offers no answers, only the fleeting, fragile comfort of a human heart beating against one’s own.

How It Unfolds

The biological entrapment The poet begins by arguing that human personality is merely the result of glandular fate, leaving us all "slaves" to our internal chemistry. He establishes a cynical, deterministic worldview where even the most profound human actions are reduced to the physical.

The conflict of ideals The poet stands before the Sphinx to reconcile the "deeper light" of spirit with the "bestial" nature of physical passion. He finds that his own heart is a battlefield where the "Nazarene" and the "son of Aphrodite" wage a constant, exhausting war.

The historical ghosts He wanders through the cemeteries of the past, encountering the spirits of those who lived and died for beauty or excess. These figures, from King David to Oscar Wilde, serve as mirrors for his own longing and his rejection of the "Pharisees."

The feminine mystery The poet shifts to an exploration of the eternal feminine, portraying woman as the "harlot of the world" and the "good Samaritan" alike. He laments the suffering inherent in her existence and recognizes her as a participant in his own search for salvation.

The final confrontation The collection closes with a descent into the underworld, where the poet addresses the "Mad Master" of the universe directly. He rejects the comfort of religious cant, demanding instead a recognition of the beauty found in the present, fleeting moment.

The People

The Poet is the central, driving intelligence—a man who wants to be both saint and libertine. He is burdened by knowledge and "atavistic terrors," constantly searching for a way to unify his intellectual aspirations with his raw, sensory appetites. He ends up not as a triumphant hero, but as a "pilgrim of passion" who has traded certainty for the complexity of his own desires.

Jesus appears as an image of beauty and kindness, a force of "joy" that the poet feels has been stolen by the "weazened" and the "oily." He is the embodiment of the poet's desire for liberation from the "House Unbeautiful."

Eros, the son of Aphrodite, is the poet’s shadow—the force that drives him to seek "strange pleasure in unholy quest." He represents the raw, "crimson" heat of life, a god who is as weary and cynical as the man who conjures him.

Lilith and Eve function as the dual aspects of the woman in the poet’s life. Lilith is the dark, dangerous dream of the "demon lover," while Eve represents the patient, suffering presence who has "healed us with her tears" through the ages. They are the sources of the poet's deepest inspiration and his most profound sense of guilt.

In Its Own Voice

A twisted nerve, a ganglion gone awry, Predestinates the sinner and the saint.

The poet argues that our moral choices are merely the result of biological necessity rather than free will.

I am the Pilgrim of Passion who ever must choose and grieve Between the earth-born daughters of Lilith and of Eve.

Reflecting on his life, the speaker describes his existence as a perpetual oscillation between dark desire and domestic sorrow.

And when the damp and dreary mould Full soon my little limbs shall hold, Let Leonardo’s finger write Upon my grave, in letters bold: ‘His life was as a splash of gold Against the plumage of the night.’

The poet contemplates the brevity of life and the desire for his existence to be remembered as a defiant, singular spark in an encroaching darkness.

What It's Really About

The work is a meditation on the "Life Force"—the relentless, indifferent energy that drives all creation and destruction. The poet argues that human existence is fundamentally tragic because we possess the capacity for infinite desire but are trapped in the "cerecloth" of the body. He questions the validity of traditional morality, suggesting that the "Pharisees" who preach restraint are the true enemies of the spirit. Ultimately, the book is an argument for beauty as the only possible redemption in a universe governed by a "bored and bilious god." It asks whether it is possible to live fully and passionately without being destroyed by the very instincts that make us human.

Why Read It Today

Readers drawn to the early 20th-century fascination with psychoanalysis and the decadence of the fin-de-siècle will find much to admire here. The language is rich, often heavy with the weight of its own mythological allusions, and possesses a rhythmic, operatic intensity that feels very much of its time. Those who enjoy poetry that is unapologetically "intensely personal" and willing to confront the "horror of the Infinite" will appreciate the poet’s raw, confrontational style.

However, a reader should be prepared for the period’s specific attitudes; the poet’s treatment of gender and his sometimes jarring, clinical fascination with "psychopathic" themes reflect the early 1900s’ discourse on sexual identity. The tone is consistently high-pitched—it is a book that does not know how to whisper. For someone seeking a calm or understated read, this may be overwhelming, but for those interested in the psychological struggle of an era, it offers a window into a mind trying to reconcile the "monstrous" with the "divine." What stays with the reader is the poet’s persistent, almost desperate insistence that even if life is a "prank of destiny," the act of singing about it is a noble, necessary defiance.