Witch-moon that turnest all the streams to blood,

     I take this hazel rod, and stand, and swear

     An Oath -- beneath this blasted Oak and bare

That rears its agony above the flood

     Whose swollen mask mutters an atheist's prayer.

What oath may stand the shock of this offence:

"There is no I, no joy, no permanence"?

 

Witch-moon of blood, eternal ebb and flow

     Of baffled birth, in death still lurks a change;

     And all the leopards in thy woods that range,

And all the vampires in their boughs that glow,

     Brooding on blood-thirst -- these are not so strange

And fierce as life's unfailing shower. These die,

     Yet time rebears them through eternity.

 

Hear then the Oath, witch-moon of blood, dread moon!

     Let all thy stryges and thy ghouls attend!

     He that endureth even to the end

Hath sworn that Love's own corpse shall lie at noon

     Even in the coffin of its hopes, and spend

All the force won by its old woe and stress

In now annihilating Nothingness.

     The title of this chapter, and its two sub-titles, will need no explanation to the readers of the classics.
     This poem, inspired by Jane Cheron, is as simple as it is elegant.
     The poet asks, in verse 1, how can we baffle the Three Characteristics?
     In verse 2, he shows that death is impotent against life.
     In verse 3, he offers the solution of the problem.
     This is, to accept things as they are, and to turn your whole energies to progress on the Path.