Tagore

Here's a great excerpt from the Bengali poet and polymath R. Tagore's [1861-1941] Songs of Kabir, read more here. This is from section XVII:

[...]

There the sky is filled with music:
There it rains nectar:
There the harp-strings jingle, and there the drums beat.
What a secret splendour is there, in the mansion of the sky!
There no mention is made of the rising and the setting of the
  sun;
In the ocean of manifestation, which is the light of love, day
  and night are felt to be one.
Joy for ever, no sorrow,—no struggle!
There have I seen joy filled to the brim, perfection of joy;
No place for error is there.
Kabîr says: "There have I witnessed the sport of One Bliss!"

I have known in my body the sport of the universe: I have escaped
  from the error of this world..
The inward and the outward are become as one sky, the Infinite
  and the finite are united: I am drunken with the sight of this
  All!

[...]

Lurking

The Decadent movement came at the fin de siècle, the end of the 1890s--it was associated with Symbolist art and writing, and also stuff like Beardsley's wild drawings, Wilde's Dorian Grey. It was different than the wider Romantic movement [c1800s-1850s]. One very interesting thing it created by Jean Lorrain's [1855-1906] novel Monsieur De Phocas [Mister De Phocas], read here in French.

If you like masks, Venetian carnival-style atmospheres, the eerie and True Detective, try this, it's what to read after it. It always reminds me of Astarte [Ashtoreth] with his line of her and mention of a black Astarte statue--I recall her picture by Sargent up on the curved wall in Boston's famous Italian marble palazzo Public Library. 

Astarte [Greek: Ἀστάρτη], also called Ishtar or Aphrodite by other groups, was an ancient goddess especially worshipped in Cyprus and Phoenician cities like Sidon, Tyre and Byblos [now the area of the coast in Lebanon and Syria--they were famous for trading their purple dye, which came from local snails]. She represented sexuality but also war, and notice the crescent moon under her feet, all the shining golden cut glass pressed into the painting, like the acorns on the sides. 

Here's a little quote I like:
Astarte has come again, more powerful than before. She possesses me. She lies in wait for me.
Astarté est revenue, plus puissante qu'avant. Elle me possède, elle me guette. [original French]

And another longer one:
The madness of the eyes is the lure of the abyss. Sirens lurk in the dark depths of the pupils as they lurk at the bottom of the sea, that I know for sure - but I have never encountered them, and I am searching still for the profound and plaintive gazes in whose depths I might be able, like Hamlet redeemed, to drown the Ophelia of my desire.

And this great creepy part:
“Masks! I see them everywhere. That dreadful vision of the other night - the deserted town with its masked corpses in every doorway; that nightmare product of morphine and ether - has taken up residence within me. I see masks in the street, I see them on stage in the theatre, I find yet more of them in the boxes. They are on the balcony and in the orchestra-pit. Everywhere I go I am surrounded by masks. The attendants to whom I give my overcoat are masked; masks crowd around me in the foyer as everyone leaves, and the coachman who drives me home has the same cardboard grimace fixed upon his face!

It is truly too much to bear: to feel that one is alone and at the mercy of all those enigmatic and deceptive faces, alone amid all the mocking laughs and the threats embodied in those masks. I have tried to persuade myself that I am dreaming, and that I am the victim of a hallucination, but all the powdered and painted faces of women, all the rouged lips and kohl-blackened eyelids... all of that has created around me an atmosphere of trance and mortal agony. Cosmetics: there is the root cause of my illness!

But I am happy, now, when there are only masks! Sometimes, I detect the cadavers beneath, and remember that beneath the masks there is a host of spectres.” 

Dupin

Let's look at E.A. Poe's [1809-1849] famous detective story with Dupin, the precursor to Sherlock Holmes and Arsène Lupin by Maurice Leblanc [1864-1941]. Read it all here. The story uses initials with dashes to make it seem like the author is referencing real people and families that he dare not wholly name.

Remember, Dupin leaves a note for the bad man, called only 'D' in the story, in his card rack near where Dupin had put the fake letter he created [to replace the one he stole]. The note says only:
"'— Un dessein si funeste, S'il n'est digne d'Atrée, est digne de Thyeste. They are to be found in Crebillon's 'Atrée.'"
A design [ie plan] so fatal, it's not the dignity of Atreus, it's the dignity of Thyestes.

This refers to a 1707 play by Académie Française seatholder Frenchman Prosper Jolyot (the sieur de Crébillon; 1674-1762). The play Atrée et Thyeste is about so named twin brothers from Mycenae in Greece who violently and ruthlessly vie with and hate each other. In a sense Dupin is mocking his enemy 'D' for not being smarter, since he was obviously quite bright in hiding something in plain sight. He gave the desired letter such a gross, dirty envelope that no one thought it was the right one, even though it was out in the open in plain sight. Dupin is saying he and his enemy 'D' are very alike, but he won in this instance. [*Don't confuse this Atreus with Myst island and the computer game.]

Here's an excerpt where Dupin describes where he found the letter a man was holding a noblewoman hostage with:

It [ie. the letter] was thrust carelessly, and even, as it seemed, contemptuously, into one of the uppermost divisions of the rack.

"No sooner had I glanced at this letter, than I concluded it to be that of which I was in search. To be sure, it was, to all appearance, radically different from the one of which the Prefect had read us so minute a description. Here the seal was large and black, with the D— cipher; there it was small and red, with the ducal arms of the S— family. Here, the address, to the Minister, diminutive and feminine; there the superscription, to a certain royal personage, was markedly bold and decided; the size alone formed a point of correspondence. But, then, the radicalness of these differences, which was excessive; the dirt; the soiled and torn condition of the paper, so inconsistent with the true methodical habits of D—, and so suggestive of a design to delude the beholder into an idea of the worthlessness of the document; these things, together with the hyper-obtrusive situation of this document, full in the view of every visiter, and thus exactly in accordance with the conclusions to which I had previously arrived; these things, I say, were strongly corroborative of suspicion, in one who came with the intention to suspect.

"I protracted my visit as long as possible, and, while I maintained a most animated discussion with the Minister upon a topic which I knew well had never failed to interest and excite him, I kept my attention really riveted upon the letter. In this examination, I committed to memory its external appearance and arrangement in the rack; and also fell, at length, upon a discovery which set at rest whatever trivial doubt I might have entertained. In scrutinizing the edges of the paper, I observed them to be more chafed than seemed necessary. They presented the broken appearance which is manifested when a stiff paper, having been once folded and pressed with a folder, is refolded in a reversed direction, in the same creases or edges which had formed the original fold. This discovery was sufficient. It was clear to me that the letter had been turned, as a glove, inside out, re-directed, and re-sealed. I bade the Minister good morning, and took my departure at once, leaving a gold snuff-box upon the table.

"The next morning I called for the snuff-box, when we resumed, quite eagerly, the conversation of the preceding day. While thus engaged, however, a loud report, as if of a pistol, was heard immediately beneath the windows of the hotel, and was succeeded by a series of fearful screams, and the shoutings of a terrified mob. D— rushed to a casement, threw it open, and looked out. In the meantime, I stepped to the card-rack, took the letter, put it in my pocket, and replaced it by a fac-simile, (so far as regards externals,) which I had carefully prepared at my lodgings—imitating the D— cipher, very readily, by means of a seal formed of bread.

Tennyson

Tennyson's [1809-1892] poem "The Voyage of Maeldune" is a great, really interesting poem based on an ancient Irish Celtic legend. It's mythic, a symbolic look at Ireland's history and an adventure where they visit tons of odd, strange islands, like:

• The island of colorful birds singing like psalms
• The island with the psalm singing old man with noble monastic words
• The island with the golden wall around it
• The island with a woman pelting them with nuts
• The island with a river sky that was raining salmon
• The island on a pedestal

You can read the whole poem here, and here's an excerpt with great imagery:
The Voyage of Maeldune

[...]

V.

And we came to the Isle of Flowers: their breath met us out on the seas,

For the Spring and the middle Summer sat each on the lap of the breeze;

And the red passion-flower to the cliffs and the dark-blue clematis, clung,

And starr’d with a myriad blossom the long convolvulus hung;

And the topmost spire of the mountain was lilies in lieu of snow,

And the lilies like glaciers winded down, running out below

Thro’ the fire of the tulip and poppy, the blaze of gorse, and the blush

Of millions of roses that sprang without leaf or a thorn from the bush;

And the whole isle-side flashing down from the peak without ever a tree

Swept like a torrent of gems from the sky to the blue of the sea;

Ancient Mexican poetry

Brinton's book of Ancient Nahuatl Poetry from Mexico and ancient Mexican poets [Nahuatl basically means Aztec] is incredible, just look at the excerpt below from "IX. An Otomi Song of Sadness" ["Otro tlaocolcuica otomitl"] and for more read here:

4. I array myself with the jewels of saddest flowers; in 
my hands are the weeping flowers of war; I lift my 
voice in sad songs; I offer a new and worthy song 
which is beautiful and melodious; I weave songs fresh 
as the dew of flowers; on my drum decked with 
precious stones and plumes I, the singer, keep time to 
my song, as I take it from those dwellers in the heavens, 
the zacuan bird, the beautiful tzinitzcan, the divine 
quechol, those melodious birds who give joy to the 
Cause of All.

4. Ica ye ninapanao tlaocolxochicozcatlon, 
nomac ommanian elcicihuilizchimàlxochitlon, 
nic ehuaya in tlaocolcuicatloo, 
nicchalchiuhcocahuicomana yectli yancuicatl, 
nic ahuachxochilacatzoa, yn o 
chalchiuhuehueuhilhuitl, itech nictlaxilotia in 
nocuicatzin in nicuicani ye niquincuilia in 
ilhuicac chanequeo zacuantototl, 
quetzaltzinitzcantototl teoquechol inon tlătoa 
quechol in qui cecemeltia in tloque, etc.

Tagore

R. Tagore [1861-1941] was a famous Bengali Indian genius, you can read more here from his poetry volume Gitanjali ['An offering of songs']. Let's focus on an excerpt of his today, note it's spare yet atmospheric feeling that blooms into a type of metaphor, as if reality had blended into a dream or augury:

In the deep shadows of the rainy July, with secret steps, thou walkest, silent as night, eluding all watchers.

Today the morning has closed its eyes, heedless of the insistent calls of the loud east wind, and a thick veil has been drawn over the ever-wakeful blue sky.

The woodlands have hushed their songs, and doors are all shut at every house. Thou art the solitary wayfarer in this deserted street. Oh my only friend, my best beloved, the gates are open in my house—do not pass by like a dream.

Art thou abroad on this stormy night on thy journey of love, my friend? The sky groans like one in despair.

I have no sleep tonight. Ever and again I open my door and look out on the darkness, my friend!

I can see nothing before me. I wonder where lies thy path!

By what dim shore of the ink-black river, by what far edge of the frowning forest, through what mazy depth of gloom art thou threading thy course to come to me, my friend?

If the day is done, if birds sing no more, if the wind has flagged tired, then draw the veil of darkness thick upon me, even as thou hast wrapt the earth with the coverlet of sleep and tenderly closed the petals of the drooping lotus at dusk.

Coral Bracho

I have probably already featured the Mexican Coral Bracho, but I need to highlight her poems "In the Heart of Time" ["En la entraña del tiempo"], "Touches Its Depths and Is Stirred Up" ["Toca su fondo y se remueve"] and her amazing "Of Their Eyes Adorned with Crystal Sands" ["De sus ojos ornados de arenas vítreas"], "Water of Jellyfish" ["Agua de bordes lúbricos"] and others here all translated from the Spanish by Katherine Pierpoint.

She's got a great style, almost like Gabriele D'Annunzio. Be sure to try her poem "Firefly Under the Tongue" translated by Forrest Gander, it's incredible, with the opening:

I love you from the sharp tang of the fermentation;   

in the blissful pulp. [...]

Here's an excerpt from "Let That Fine Rain Fall" ["Que caiga esa lluvia fina"]:
[...]
This dark truth, this swaying lightness                                          Esta verdad oscura, esta oscilante levedad
like the whisper of endless bats,                                                        como el murmullo de un sinfín de murciélagos,
all sensing their way,                                                                            todos tanteando,
all surging as one up the veins' living corridors, all trying       todos brotando a un tiempo en las despiertas            
                                                                                                                     galerías de la sangre, todos tratando
to flee the towers.                                                                                    de salir de las torres.
To say yes,                                                                                                 Para decir que sí,let that mist of rain fall against the threshold,                               que caiga esa lluvia fina contra el umbral,   
let it fall on the walls; [...]                                                                    que caiga sobre los muros;      [...]



Here's an excerpt from "Marks of Time" ["Trazo del tiempo"]:

Between wind and dark,                                                                Entre el viento y lo oscuro,between a rush of joy                                                                      entre el gozo ascendenteyet deepest calm,                                                                              y la quietud profunda,between my lovely white dress flying                                         entre la exaltación de mi vestido blanco          
and the dark, dark hole of the mine,                                          y la oquedad nocturna de la mina,are my father's eyes, so gentle, waiting; his dancing            los ojos suaves de mi padre que esperan; su alegría                                                  
happiness. I go to meet him. This is a land                              incandescente. Subo para alcanzarlo. Es la tierra                                
of little stars, of pyrite crystals,                                                    de los pequeños astros, y sobre ella,           
wherever it's touched by the sunset. Clouds                             sobre sus lajas de pirita, el sol desciende. Altas nubes                                 
of quartz, [...]                                                                                    de cuarzo,  [...]