the moth

"The dwarfs began to recite the Koran with their clear shrill voices, and Shaban and Sutlememe stood at some distance, anxiously waiting for the effects of the powder." --Vathek

Incantation.

"Isled in the midnight air,
Musked with the dark's faint bloom,
Out into glooming and secret haunts
The flame cries, 'Come!'

Lovely in dye and fan,
A-tremble in shimmering grace,
A moth from her winter swoon
Uplifts her face:

Stares from her glamorous eyes;
Wafts her on plumes like mist;
In ecstasy swirls and sways
To her strange tryst."

--Walter de la Mare

"He had a Caesar’s arrogance about his poetry, as most poets do; but 'The Cost' remains the only important poem to come out of that lost war in Southeast Asia."