I. B.C.
COME, Hesper, and ye Gods of mountain waters, | |
| Come, nymphs and Dryades, | |
| Come, silken choir of soft Pierian daughters, | |
| And girls of lakes and seas, | |
| Evoë! and evoë Io! crying, | 5 |
| Fill all the earth and air; | |
| Evoë! till the quivering words, replying, | |
| Shout back the echo there! | |
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| All day in soundless swoon or heavy slumber, | |
| We lay among the flowers, | 10 |
| But now the stars break forth in countless number | |
| To watch the dewy hours; | |
| And now Iacchus, beautiful and glowing, | |
| Adown the hill-side comes, | |
| Mid tabrets shaken high, and trumpets blowing, | 15 |
| And resonance of drums. | |
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| The leopard-skin is round his smooth white shoulders, | |
| The vine-branch round his hair, | |
| Those eyes that rouse desire in maid-beholders | |
| Are glittering, glowworm-fair; | 20 |
| Crowned king of all the provinces of pleasure, | |
| Lord of a wide domain, | |
| He comes, and brings delight that knows no measure, | |
| A full Saturnian reign. | |
| |
| Take me, too, Maenads, to your fox-skin chorus, | 25 |
| Rose-lipped like volute-shells, | |
| For I would follow where your host canorous | |
| Roars down the forest-dells; | |
| The sacred frenzy rends my throat and bosom! | |
| I shout, and whirl where He, | 30 |
| Our Vine-God, tosses like some pale blood-blossom | |
| Swept on a stormy sea. | |
| |
| Around his car, with streaming hair, and frantic, | |
| The Maenads and wild gods | |
| And shaggy fauns and wood-girls corybantic | 35 |
| Toss high the ivy-rods; | |
| Brown limbs with white limbs madly intertwining | |
| Whirl in a fiery dance, | |
| Till, when at length Orion is declining, | |
| We glide into a trance. | 40 |
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| The satyr’s heart is faintly, faintly beating, | |
| The choir of nymphs is mute; | |
| Iacchus up the western slope is fleeting, | |
| Uncheered by horn or flute; | |
| Hushed, hushed are all the shouting and the singing, | 45 |
| The frenzy, the delight, | |
| Since out into the cold grey air upspringing, | |
| The morning-star shines bright. | |
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II. A.D.
Not with a choir of angels without number, | |
| And noise of lutes and lyres, | 50 |
| But gently, with the woven veil of slumber | |
| Across Thine awful fires, | |
| We yearn to watch Thy face, serene and tender, | |
| Melt, smiling, calm and sweet, | |
| Where round the print of thorns, in thornlike splendour, | 55 |
| Transcendent glories meet. | |
| |
| We have no hopes if Thou art close beside us, | |
| And no profane despairs, | |
| Since all we need is Thy great hand to guide us, | |
| Thy heart to take our cares; | 60 |
| For us is no to-day, to-night, to-morrow, | |
| No past time nor to be, | |
| We have no joy but Thee, there is no sorrow, | |
| No life to live but Thee. | |
| |
| The cross, like pilgrim-warriors, we follow, | 65 |
| Led by our eastern star; | |
| The wild crane greets us, and the wandering swallow | |
| Bound southward for Shinar; | |
| All night that single star shines bright above us; | |
| We go with weary feet, | 70 |
| But in the end we know are they who love us, | |
| Whose pure embrace is sweet. | |
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| Most sweet of all, when dark the way and moonless, | |
| To feel a touch, a breath, | |
| And know our weary spirits are not tuneless, | 75 |
| Our unseen goal not Death; | |
| To know that Thou, in all Thy old sweet fashion, | |
| Art near us to sustain! | |
| We praise Thee, Lord, by all Thy tears and passion, | |
| By all Thy cross and pain! | 80 |
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| For when this night of toil and tears is over, | |
| Across the hills of spice, | |
| Thyself wilt meet us, glowing like a lover | |
| Before Love’s Paradise; | |
| There are the saints, with palms and hymns and roses, | 85 |
| And better still than all, | |
| The long, long day of bliss that never closes, | |
| Thy marriage festival! | |
