Wild honey from various thyme :: :: University of Virginia Library

Wondrous, shifting deserts spread
Thirst and iris phantoms wide—
Seas of drouth and seas of vision,
Framed of earth forever dead,
Rippling with a fell derision
Distantly, on every side.

'Mid the iris whorl of sand,
'Mid Arabian stretches dry,
Bacchus in his torment, dreaming
Of his grapes where land is land,
And the waters are no seeming,
Cleaves the grey dome with a cry.

“Father, I am parched, who drank
Life of thee; I am as dust.
Wilt thou burn me dead? To cheat me
Every flood I came to sank
As I dreamed its flow would greet me,
Gushing to delight my lust.

As my mother must I sink,
Cheated in desire by flame?
Oh, forget not thou wert giver
Of the sap from which I came.
By my birthright, Zeus, deliver;
Let me of true fountains drink!”

Through the muteness of a space,
Where the iris to and fro
Lurks behind the limpid hazes,
Stately in his fleece of snow,
That with noon's pursuance blazes,
Steps a ram of ivory face.

With his foot he strikes the sod,
And a glorious water plays
Through the crystal desolation:
Then he lifts his horns that blaze
Sovereign while his sweet creation
Sings and bubbles where he trod.

Thus he stands, while Bacchus drinks
Draught on draught of his desire;
Melting lips as harsh as cinders,

Quenching deep the mortal fire
From a fount no trammel hinders,
Till in sand its bounty sinks.

Sudden lifting his drenched brow,
Scattering rain upon the grit,
Bacchus fronts the noble creature,
And his eyes give thanks to it:
Splendour wakens every feature,
Knowledge springs he knows not how.

This is Zeus, in mercy veiled,
Come to Semele's own son,
From the scorching flames to save him,
From the death he might not shun;
Zeus made secret thus to lave him
In a stream, where waters failed.

Passion of divinest core
Softens, warms the creature's gaze;
Then again his horns he tosses,
Stately braves the desert's blaze,
Firm its cheating limit crosses,
Past its waves is seen no more.