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172

II. DIONYSIA.

1.

See, over Sunium's height the golden Morn
Gleams, stretching forth her rosy-fingered hand,
And o'er the smiling waves, and vine-clad land,
Sheds the rich lustre of the light new born.
At break of day they haste from every deme,
Kolonos, Parnes, or Acharnæ old;
Where shepherds seek the wanderers from their fold,
By fair Ilissos, or Kephisos' stream;
Where slopes Hymettos with its fragrant store,
Or sacred pathway to Eleusis leads,
Where plane-trees whisper to the answering reeds,
Or rich Laureion yields her silvern ore;
They haste in festive garments through the street,
By Agora, and Pnyx, and Parthenon,
And ere the dew has yielded to the sun,
In the great court of Dionysos meet.
For now fair Spring has come with smiles and mirth,
And green the grass on meadow and on hill,
With sweeter music flows each mountain rill,
And showers and zephyrs gladden all the earth.
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Here where, of old, our fathers met and sang
In rude, wild hymns the mirth and might divine
Of Bacchus, child of Zeus, and lord of wine,
And jest and song through all the clear air rang;—
Here now we own the Lord of life and song,
Giving high thoughts, and kindling poet's fire,
With roseate flush just warming young desire,
The Lord and Master of the Muses' throng.
From every legend of the storied past,
Man's wrath and sorrow, penitence and guilt,
Crime wrought in darkness, blood at random spilt,
The dread Erinnys' vengeance following fast;—
Stories of Thebes, of Argos, and of Troy,
These come before us framed by poet's skill,
From choral lips the songs of homage thrill,
Waking or fear or pity, grief or joy.
So wise men's hearts have widened with the years,
And rude, rough revel yields to loftier thought;
We own and praise the gladness all unsought;
But joy is noblest when it blends with tears.
The Giver of the gladness of the vine,
We own Him Lord of all that stirs and warms,
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The song that soothes, the strain that calls to arms,
The choral dance, the hymn before the shrine.

2.

Yes, come, ye Mænads, floating hair
Cast wildly to the midnight air;
With flashing eye, and blazing torch,
Rush wildly on through columned porch;
“Evöe,” shout; “Evöe” still,
In dusky grove, by warbling rill;
Wake up the echoes far and near,
Bid all the fawns and satyrs hear,
Sing ye the song men sang of old
When from the yeanlings of the fold,
They brought the goat to Bacchus' shrine,
Foe of the tendrils of the vine.
Dance ye, dance wildly in your joy,
Mirth that our God gives cannot cloy.
This glow that warms the old man's veins,
With gleams of sunlight after rains,
This flush that mantles youth's fair face
With kindling eye and roseate grace,
And bids the boy cast off his fears,
And know a life beyond his years,
What is all this, with wonder rife,
But nature's magic, life of life,
That works through sun, and moon, and star,
With subtle stirrings near and far,
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Sends the fresh sap through budding grove,
Bids every leaf and floweret move,
And perfect grows in youth's first love?
With mightiest touch that wondrous spell
Makes blossoms open, fruitage swell,
Draws forth from nightingale and lark
The songs that charm the light and dark;
On Psyche's fluttering wings outpours
The orient tints of star-paved floors,
And through the veins of nobler forms
Rushes, as rush the sweeping storms,
To find, at last, its noblest prey
When men bow down before its sway,
And fill the throbbing heart and brain
With joy so keen it ends in pain.
Right well our festal games to-day
Should all the mystic power display;
The frolic mirth, the frenzy wild,
Mirth of the savage and the child;
Where, strained in rapture, every sense
Seems bursting with the joy intense,
And brute-like stirrings through us thrill,
Unguided by the loftier will;
Let satyrs sport with laughing fawns,
In sheltered groves, on mountain lawns,
Crowned with the ivy and the vine,
Goat-limbed, and faces red with wine.
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So let it be, but holier sound
Must in the solemn rite be found;
To Him, the son of Zeus, far-famed,
The God of Nysa, many-named,
Must rise the choral song of praise,
Our heritage from ancient days;
Nor can we spare the mystic art,
Which stirs the throbbings of the heart,
Tells the dark tale of woe sublime,
The havoc of the conqueror, Time;
Or tracks, in sequence dark and strange,
Life's varied course of chance and change.
So, when the crimson sun has set,
And all the vines with dews are wet;
When stars obey their leader's call,
And round the moon keep festival,
The long, long day within its span
Shall hold complete the life of man,
Its instincts, passions, thrilling sense,
Its calm and clear intelligence;
The bands that bind him still to earth,
The hopes that speak a loftier birth.
Alone, of all beneath the sky,
He lives, half brute, half deity;
In him the darkness blends with day,
The gold, thrice cleansed, with mire and clay;
And so from morning unto eve,
The varied web of life we weave;
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Hues of the rainbow, gleams of fire,
Joy, sorrow, hope, despair, desire;
And, as the shuttle to and fro
We ply, the strains of music flow,
And speak, now soft as fountain's fall,
Now mighty as the storm-cloud's call,
The life that stirs in infant's breath,
And, all paths traversed, ends in death.

2.

It was not all a dream,
That vision of a power to stir and move,
Which sheds its joyous gleam,
And fills the world and man with life and love.
The purple juice that flows
From cask or skin in goblet wrought with gold,
Whose rich, dark ruby glows,
Like purple sunset on a temple old,
Is parable and type
Of holiest things that lie within the veil;
Those clusters full and ripe
Tell of a Spirit mighty to prevail.
He once, whom we adore,
Took bread and brake, and to the Twelve He gave,
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The Paschal supper o'er,
The wine that told of life from out the grave.
Of all God's gifts to man
That only filled the measure of the truth,
Witness of life that ran
Through years and changes with unfailing youth;
Witness of holier life,
Whose joy bursts out in hymn, and chant, and psalm,
And, through the world's rough strife,
Bids storm-tossed souls take courage and be calm.
He, who the winepress trod,
Who poured His blood as wine of sacrifice,
And in His zeal for God,
And love for man, paid their full ransom-price;
He gives His life-blood still,
Joy of all joys, and solace of all woe,
Man's heart and soul to fill,
In gushing stream through every vein to flow.
When on the chosen band
There came the sound of rushing, mighty wind,
And flames, on either hand,
Disparted, and strange speech of newest kind;
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Men laughed, and mocked, and said:
“Lo! these are drunken, all unfit to teach,
New wine hath filled each head;
See, here the secret of their babbling speech.”
And half their words were right,
For then, in that high ecstasy divine,
That flashing of new light,
Their souls grew dizzy, drunk, but not with wine.
And so through every age,
The life that works through Nature and through man
Here gains its highest stage,
As upward from the old great deeps it ran.
Yes, He, the Lord of life,
Who brooded o'er the waste of waters wild,
And calmed their war and strife,
He comes with breath as whispering and as mild
As breeze of summer morn;
And wakes new music, pours the floods of song
Through heart and soul new-born,
And all, by that great current swept along,
Know joy ne'er felt before,
A peace unbroken that is not of earth;
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While through the sere heart pour
Rivers of gladness, streams of heavenly mirth.
They own in prayer and vow,
How poor the bliss that thrilled the eager sense;
The good wine kept till now,
Bursting the vessel with the joy intense.
And so when all shall meet
At wedding-feast, in garments white and clean,
And at their Lord's dear feet
Shall see Him as He is, no veil between,
Then they shall drink new wine,
As weary travellers who have ceased to roam,
Yea, taste the joy divine
Of sons who dwell within their Father's home.
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