C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Cybele and her Children

From ‘Fair Shadow Land’

THE MOTHER has eternal youth;

Yet in the fading of the year,

For sake of what must fade, in ruth

She wears a crown of oak-leaves sear.

By whistling woods, by naked rocks,

That long have lost the summer heat,

She calls the wild, unfolded flocks,

And points them to their shelter meet.

In her deep bosom sink they all;

The hunter and the prey are there;

No ravin-cry, no hunger-call:

These do not fear, and those forbear.

The winding serpent watches not;

Unwatched, the field-mouse trembles not;

Weak hyla, quiet in his grot,

So rests, nor changes line or spot.

For food the Mother gives them sleep,

Against the cold she gives them sleep,

To cheat their foes she gives them sleep,

For safety gives them death-like sleep.

The Mother has eternal youth,

And therefrom, in the wakening year

Their life revives; and they, in sooth,

Forget their mystic bondage drear.