thurber:

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema - The Roses of Heliogabalus

Heliogabalus
Clark Ashton Smith Translated from Christophe des Lauriëres

    He, the supreme idealist of Sin,
    Through scarlet days a white perfection sought
    To make of lyric deed and lyric thought
    One music of perverse accord, wherein
    The songless blatancy and banal din
    Of all the world should perish: he had wrought
    From Vice a pure, Pentelic Venus, fraught
    With lines of light and terror, that should win
    The plaudits of the stars… . But prevalent
    For him, above the achievable desire,
    And Life perfectible by Sin and Art,
    Such lusts as leave the Titans impotent
    Allured, and Life and Sin, in worlds apart,
    Were fair with suns of quintessential fire.