Hieronymus feeding the monsters (c. 1510)
Gather, my demons—
Delicious our substance, materialized thus.
You fangs, pierce. And swallow, you gaping, green mouths,
And you with bronze roots in the black stream, quietly, quietly
Absorb. Do I lend you the means? I think not.
You sharp ears, listen! And all eyes, watch.
How the world made you, the world
Only knows. Yet I am the keeper of colors,
The bearer of timbers, the framer of cowardly dreams.
Delicious. How soft stones and dead flowers
Confuse in the mortar, bloom in the oil.
For I am the artist of my age—
Of temptation, disaster, of the pear
And the egg. Good fortune is easily broken.
Be quicker. Impasto. Now leap in your infinite music
You rapid, spontaneous fires. The long grain of this wood
I shall darken, over my head, and close my two eyes
To your faces. So gather, O monsters,
now I must feed upon you.
