University of Virginia Library


34

Nysa

[_]

(Soph., Fr., 235; Aesch., Fr., 56.)

On these Nysæan shores divine
The clusters ripen in a day.
At dawn the blossom shreds away;
The berried grapes are green and fine
And full by noon; in day's decline
They're purple with a bloom of gray;
And e'er the twilight plucked are they,
And crushed, by nightfall, into wine.
But through the night with torch in hand
Down the dusk hills the maenads fare;
The bull-voiced mummers roar and blare,
The muffled timbrels swell and sound,
And drown the clamour of the band
Like thunder moaning underground.