On Viol and Flute :: :: University of Virginia Library

Come, Hesper, and ye Gods of mighty waters,
Ye nymphs and Dryades,
Come, all the choir of white Pierian daughters,
And girls of lakes and seas,
Evoë! and evoë Io! crying,
Fill all the earth and air;
Evoë! and the hanging woods, replying,
Shall shout the echo there!

All day in breathless swoon or heavy slumber,
We lay among the flowers,
But now the stars break forth in countless number
To watch the dewy hours;
And now Iacchus, beautiful and glowing,
Adown the hill-side comes,
With tabrets shaken high, and trumpets blowing,
And resonance of drums.

The leopard-skin is round his smooth white shoulders,
The vine-branch round his hair;
The eyes that rouse delight in maid-beholders,
Are glittering, glowworm-fair;
The king of all the provinces of pleasure,
Lord of a wide domain,
He comes and brings delight that knows no measure,
A full Saturnian reign.

O take me, Mænads, to your foxskin-chorus,
Pink-lipped like volute-shells,
For I must follow where your chant sonorous
Roars down the forest-dells;
The sacred frenzy rends my throat and bosom,
I shout, and whirl where He,
Our vine-god, tosses like some pale blood-blossom,
Borne on a windy sea.

Around the car, with streaming hair and frantic,
The Mænads and wild gods,
And shaggy fauns and wood-girls corybantic
Toss high the ivy-rods;
Brown limbs with white limbs hotly intertwining
Whirl in a maddening dance,
Till, when at last Orion is declining,
We slip into a trance.

The satyr's heart is faintly, faintly beating;
The white-lipped nymph is mute;
Iacchus up the western slope is fleeting,
Uncheered by horn or lute;
Hushed, hushed are all the shouting and the singing,
The rapture, the delight,
For out into the cold grey air upspringing,
The morning-star shines bright.

II. A.D.

Not with a choir of angels without number,
And noise of lutes and lyres,
But gently, with the woven veil of slumber
Across thine awful fires,
We long to see thy face serene and tender,
Smile on us, fair and sweet,
Where round the print of thorns, in thornlike splendour,
Transcendent glories meet!

We have no hopes if thou art near beside us,
And no profane despairs,
For all we need is thy great hand to guide us,
And lightly take our cares;
For us is no to-day, to-night, to-morrow,
No past time nor to be,
We have no joy but thee, than sin no sorrow,
No life to live but thee!

The cross, like pilgrim-warriors, we follow,
Led by the eastern star;
The wild crane knows us, and the wandering swallow,
Fled southward to Shinar;
All night the single star is bright above us,
We go with weary feet;
For in the end we know are they who love us,
And their embrace is sweet.

Most sweet of all, when dark the way and moonless,
To feel a touch, a breath,
And know our fainting spirits are not tuneless,
Our unseen goal not Death;
To know that Thou, in all the old sweet fashion,
Art near us to sustain!
We thank Thee, Lord, by all Thy tears and passion,
By all Thy cross and pain!

Along the shore whose nightly waves are broken
With mighty wings of wind,
We walk in fear; no word of us is spoken,
Our eyes with foam are blind;
The flying mist between our lips is bitter,
The deeps are full of sound,
But far away the stedfast star-beams glitter,
And still a path is found.

And when the night, with all its pain, is over,
Across the hills of spice
Thyself will meet us, glowing like a lover,
Before Love's Paradise;
There are the saints, with palms, and songs, and roses,
And better still than all,
The long, long day of love that never closes,
Thy marriage festival!