October 23, 2008

So on his Nightmare through the evening fog
Flits the squab Fiend o'er fen, and lake, and bog;
Seeks some love-wilder'd maid with sleep oppress'd,
Alights, and grinning sits upon her breast.

—Such as of late amid the murky sky
Was mark'd by Fuseli's poetic eye;
Whose daring tints, with Shakspeare's happiest grace,
Gave to the airy phantom form and place.—
Back o'er her pillow sinks her blushing head,
Her snow-white limbs hang helpless from the bed;
Her interrupted heart-pulse swims in death.

O'er her fair limbs convulsive tremors fleet,
Start in her hands, and struggle in her feet;
In vain to scream with quivering lips she tries,
And strains in palsy'd lids her tremulous eyes;
In vain she wills to run, fly, swim, walk, creep;
The Will presides not in the bower of Sleep.
—On her fair bosom sits the Demon-Ape
Erect, and balances his bloated shape;
Rolls in their marble orbs his Gorgon-eyes,
And drinks with leathern ears her tender cries.

"Night-Mare" by Erasmus Darwin

An excerpt about the painter, Henry Fuseli (1741 - 1825), found in the Tate Museum's Gothic Nightmares exhibition catalogue:

In the 1790s rumours circulated that he would eat raw pork before going to bed to fuel the nightmarish visions that were the basis of his art, or take opium to induce the imagination to greater excesses: his ‘lightheaded compositions’ could be put down to ‘an indigestion of genius’. He was repeatedly termed a ‘mad professor’ or ‘magician’, and biographical accounts and anecdotes tirelessly focused on his strange accent, propensity to swear outlandishly, and curious personal demeanour.