 | The poems and prose writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield |  |
It was the Harvest Festival; the corn
Of Ceres filled the garners, and the vine
Of the Mirth-Maker from the winepress poured
Divine Falernian; and the autumnal feast,
The Gathering of the Fruits, to all the gods,
(Through the Idæan Mother, source of all)
Was dedicated with a soul of joy.
In every temple the proud priesthood put
Their purple vestures and tiaras on
For the solemnities they loved to hold,
And masked the pride of most unholy power
Beneath an austere aspect and a faith
That spared no violator of their laws.
With citharæ and trumps and cymbals' clang,
And blasts of buccinæ and softened strains
Of flute and dulcimer, came all the pomp
In its sublimest pageantry; the god
Of light gleaming on banners wrought with forms
Picturing theogenies or bridal rites,
Or earthliest deeds of the divinities.
First walked Jove's pontiff in his diadem,
His crowned and sceptred standard fleckered o'er
With lightning bolts and tempest gloom, upborne
By popæ weaponed for the sacrifice.
Then in the mazes of a wanton dance,
Lifting the thyrsus crowned with ivy wreaths,
And muttering banquet hymns, the priests of mirth,
With antic faces and wild steps, leapt on.
Next, with a golden ensign, vales and hills
Along its borders, filled with flocks and herds,
And tall sheaves, in the centre, slowly trod
The ministers of Saturn's Daughter blest.
But, dimming all by splendour only known
In Egypt's voiceless mysteries, above
The long array now towered the gonfalon
Of Isis, glowing with devices Shame
Shrunk to behold, the shapes of Earth's worst sins
Deified fiends! and with the lozel's smiles,
Her crowned pastophori, proud of their shame,
Waved round the ribald picture, as they passed
The mansions of their votaries, and maids
And matrons hailed it from their porticoes.
Apollo, from his eyes of ecstacy
And lips of bloom filling the bosomed air
With oracles; and Hermes, in the embrace
Of Iris, winging the blue heavens of love,
With his enchanted rod pointing to earth;
Vesta, 'mid her Penates welcoming;
The heavenly Venus, with her starlight eyes,
Veiled brow and girded cestus, looking up
To the pure azure, spotless as her soul!
Followed by the more worshipped Cyprian queen,
So shadowed by her draperies that guilt
Revelled in beauty mocked with robes to tempt;
The Wargod, with the ancilia and the plumes
Of gory fight, whose triumph was despair;
Proud Pallas, with stern lips, and stainless brow,
Surmounted by its olive wreath, and eyes
That never quailed in their calm chastity;
Cotytto—the earth-passion's idol—'mid
The unclothed Baptæ, painted with designs
To startle e'en sear'd sense into a blush;
The Seaking with his trident; the castout
And shapeless Forger of the lightning bolts;
The Deity of Erebus, with her
He bore from Enna, and his son, the god
Of gold; Diana, in her treble forms,
Magician, huntress, virgin of the skies;
Hirsute and pranksy Pan, amid his fauns;
Nymphs, dryads, oreads and tritons;—all
The beautiful, or dread, or uncouth thoughts
Imagination made divinities,
In lengthened march, along Pompeii's streets,
Tow'rd the Pantheon, in their triumph moved.
Of Ceres filled the garners, and the vine
Of the Mirth-Maker from the winepress poured
90
The Gathering of the Fruits, to all the gods,
(Through the Idæan Mother, source of all)
Was dedicated with a soul of joy.
In every temple the proud priesthood put
Their purple vestures and tiaras on
For the solemnities they loved to hold,
And masked the pride of most unholy power
Beneath an austere aspect and a faith
That spared no violator of their laws.
With citharæ and trumps and cymbals' clang,
And blasts of buccinæ and softened strains
Of flute and dulcimer, came all the pomp
In its sublimest pageantry; the god
Of light gleaming on banners wrought with forms
Picturing theogenies or bridal rites,
Or earthliest deeds of the divinities.
First walked Jove's pontiff in his diadem,
His crowned and sceptred standard fleckered o'er
With lightning bolts and tempest gloom, upborne
By popæ weaponed for the sacrifice.
Then in the mazes of a wanton dance,
Lifting the thyrsus crowned with ivy wreaths,
And muttering banquet hymns, the priests of mirth,
With antic faces and wild steps, leapt on.
Next, with a golden ensign, vales and hills
Along its borders, filled with flocks and herds,
And tall sheaves, in the centre, slowly trod
The ministers of Saturn's Daughter blest.
But, dimming all by splendour only known
In Egypt's voiceless mysteries, above
The long array now towered the gonfalon
Of Isis, glowing with devices Shame
Shrunk to behold, the shapes of Earth's worst sins
Deified fiends! and with the lozel's smiles,
Her crowned pastophori, proud of their shame,
91
The mansions of their votaries, and maids
And matrons hailed it from their porticoes.
Apollo, from his eyes of ecstacy
And lips of bloom filling the bosomed air
With oracles; and Hermes, in the embrace
Of Iris, winging the blue heavens of love,
With his enchanted rod pointing to earth;
Vesta, 'mid her Penates welcoming;
The heavenly Venus, with her starlight eyes,
Veiled brow and girded cestus, looking up
To the pure azure, spotless as her soul!
Followed by the more worshipped Cyprian queen,
So shadowed by her draperies that guilt
Revelled in beauty mocked with robes to tempt;
The Wargod, with the ancilia and the plumes
Of gory fight, whose triumph was despair;
Proud Pallas, with stern lips, and stainless brow,
Surmounted by its olive wreath, and eyes
That never quailed in their calm chastity;
Cotytto—the earth-passion's idol—'mid
The unclothed Baptæ, painted with designs
To startle e'en sear'd sense into a blush;
The Seaking with his trident; the castout
And shapeless Forger of the lightning bolts;
The Deity of Erebus, with her
He bore from Enna, and his son, the god
Of gold; Diana, in her treble forms,
Magician, huntress, virgin of the skies;
Hirsute and pranksy Pan, amid his fauns;
Nymphs, dryads, oreads and tritons;—all
The beautiful, or dread, or uncouth thoughts
Imagination made divinities,
In lengthened march, along Pompeii's streets,
Tow'rd the Pantheon, in their triumph moved.
The pamylia and phallephoria. The character of the Romans under the emperors renders it unnecessary for me to create any reluctance on their part to gaze upon objects in public processions, which, in other communities, would never have been imagined. Greece took her religion from Egypt—Rome hers from Greece—and both had public temples dedicated to the Aspasias, Galateas and Campaspes of the age. The pastophori or priests of Isis, therefore, felt themselves much at home in Pompeii.
| The poems and prose writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield | |