 | The poems and prose writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield |  |
Like an earth-shadowing cypress, o'er the skies
Lifting its labyrinth of leaves, the boughs
Of molten brass, the giant trunk of flame,
The breath of the volcano's Titan heart
Hung in the heavens; and every maddened pulse
Of the vast mountain's earthquake bosom hurled
Its vengeance on the earth that gasped beneath.
Yet mortals, then, the adored Immortals deemed
Deified passions, swayed, like summer leaves.
By orison or chanted hymn, from deeds,
Ere time had birth, appointed. So, within
Their secret chambers and the silent groves,
While Ruin's eye glared in the living bolt
With wrath and scorn on their unhallowed rites,
The doomed idolators, abashed yet fain
To win redemption from suspended wrath,
Round their Penates cowered, while magians came,
Sybils and sorcerers, to mock the mind
With mystic divinations, and reveal,
What prophets need not show, folly and guilt.
To avert the doom, now Egypt's muttered spells
And magic incantations summoned up
Earth demons to unfold the future's deeds;
And thus the weird Canidia of the Time
Invoked the Spirits of the Air to aid.
Lifting its labyrinth of leaves, the boughs
Of molten brass, the giant trunk of flame,
The breath of the volcano's Titan heart
Hung in the heavens; and every maddened pulse
Of the vast mountain's earthquake bosom hurled
Its vengeance on the earth that gasped beneath.
Yet mortals, then, the adored Immortals deemed
Deified passions, swayed, like summer leaves.
By orison or chanted hymn, from deeds,
Ere time had birth, appointed. So, within
Their secret chambers and the silent groves,
While Ruin's eye glared in the living bolt
With wrath and scorn on their unhallowed rites,
The doomed idolators, abashed yet fain
To win redemption from suspended wrath,
Round their Penates cowered, while magians came,
Sybils and sorcerers, to mock the mind
With mystic divinations, and reveal,
What prophets need not show, folly and guilt.
To avert the doom, now Egypt's muttered spells
And magic incantations summoned up
Earth demons to unfold the future's deeds;
And thus the weird Canidia of the Time
Invoked the Spirits of the Air to aid.
| The poems and prose writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield | |