University of Virginia Library

There lay Eleusis, there: O reverend haunt,
Eleusis, highly favoured! whom the seas
Crown, that once rang with Salaminian shouts
Upon Eleusis' day, when Asia filled
Athens, and all her coasts: the seas, that once
When crouching Sparta hung in clouds of war
On Deceleia, down their glad tide bare
Thine else forgone processions: till in arms
Came godsped Alcibiades, and brought
Safely thy pomps along thine Holy Way,
Athens' true servant, then! Thou, who dost lie
From her, the world's chief wonder, separate
By that sweet Sacred Way of roses, lit
With torches tossing in the mystic chace
Though odorous incense clouds! Eleusis, thou
In majesty, in fearfulness, in awe,
Greater than Delphic or than Delian fanes,
Fallen Solyma, or Rome before false gods
Fallen from that high state, she had! But thou
Livest among the immortal mysteries,
Though men have lost thy secret. So our road
Was lonelier than the ancient days beheld
Their Eleusinian companies: for once,
Upon the first morn of the nine days' feast,
In Boëdromion beautiful with sheaves,
To Athens flocked the mystics. Then the cry,
Seaward! Seaward! O mystics! bade them wash
From soil and stain in the clear waters; next,
Together having shared sweet honey cakes,
Wended the first procession, round the car
That bore the basket of symbolic fruits,
Poppy seed with pomegranate: in chaste hands
Followed the sacred arks. On thee they cried,
Demeter! Mother of the fruits of earth!
Yet not by that bland name they hailed thee then:
Lady of Sorrow! Heavy-hearted Queen!
Cried they, remembering thy loneliness,
And lost Persephone. But when night fell,
With faces flashing beneath forest brands,
They sought Persephone along the shores,
While murmured all the sea. Then, chiefest right,
Lord of the fiery and devouring vine,
Iacchus, myrtle-coronalled, came forth
From Ceramicus: westward charioted
By thunders of a marching multitude,
And clangour of sonorous bronze. Men plead:
Christ hallows poverty, the Gods cared nought.
Nay! rich with poor one company, on foot
Equal procession kept and equal love.
Unto Demeter's temple vast they came,
Past bridge and holy figtree: at midnight,
Through lustral waters purified, they passed
Within the veil; led by the hierophant,
His body chilled with hemlock, that the fires
Of passion should be hushed, still be his soul.
Without, the hosts of heaven were watching: there,
The dark, that once brooded upon the deep,
Ere any light was, heavy hung: and death,
Mystical death reigned in the vasty air,
And in that world was silence; save each heart
Trembled, each labouring heart and fearful soul.
Then from the ends of earth, sweeping the seas,
Fields, footless mountain tops, and lonely moors,
Wave upon wave of sound gathered: a moan,
Dreary as the thin voice of a forlorn wind
Through Daphne drifting down, fitful and slow;
Soon swelling to the full voice of a sea
Roaring beneath wild winds; till on their fear,
With apparition of the Sacred Corn
And awefulness of imaged history,
Smote the great storm of sound from vault to floor,
Smote: and resigned again to silent gloom
The air of adoration: mighty deep
Shuddered to deep of darkness, under God.
Then on their eyes fast sealed, their dreading ears,
Thunder with flame broke through the sanctuary:
And through the thunder, voices; through the flame,
Visions: and in the vision and the voice,
God's light, and the whole melody of God.

Not with the glory of such rites have I
Put on the spirit of Eleusis: yet,
A little company although we be,
Ours are the mysteries; we also mount
With ancient prophets the mysterious way.
Beyond the shadowy threshold and gray bounds
Of purblind life I looked: then I beheld
Death's province peopled proudly! O great Death,
Imperial, perdurable, Ancient of Days!
O Death, Master of mortals! But they passed,
His people, through the limits of that realm,
And places purgatorial, till their brows
Shone; and light fell upon them in fair Fields.
Tellus was there, who by Eleusis died,
And with divine simplicity dethroned
The Lydian's pompous fortune: there he reigned,
Italy's ancient prince, Pythagoras:
And Plato, lost in immortality.

Chance and change; chance and change! strange chance, hard change:
These fashion what I know, and mourning know.
Still am I faithful to the lonely faith.
Dreaming, alone and melancholy here,
In Antioch of the Christians; would I saw
Hymettus now, and purple lights of morn:
Apollo leap above Acropolis,
And strike the shrines with gold! They are not here,
They are not mine, who there of old were mine,
Basil and Nazianzen: mighty tongues,
But mighty against all most dear to me.
A peasant has them captive: and the world,
Rome and the world bow down to Nazareth.
I only serve you, royal Gods! I still:
With body's peril, soul's distress, I still.
Would I had lived at morning of the world!
With music caught down from the Sun rang out
The lyres and chaunts of those rejoicing men:
Apollo was a glory on the heights!
Can his day dawn again? O faith most fair!
I doubt not thee. When these ill days are done,
Glad will the cities be once more, with fires
Of sacrifice, and gleaming forms divine;
Fair, as the fair perfection signified:
One great civility of Gods and men,
Calm Gods, and men serenely serving them.
Then to Eleusis would I bring again
Her desolate veneration: setting up
Temple and courts, girt with the sacred bay,
With laurel, and the comely olive branch:
And wisdom from the books of stone once more
Should nourish pure souls, and illuminate.
So, from the ruddy desert East, to her,
The bright Parisian city of my care,
Julian should be remembered by the Gods,
Their servant universal. O far dreams!
O far dreams, far beyond these weary eyes!
I shall do nothing: since the first king was,
Wisdom's crowned lover has the world not seen.
Nay! not one sceptred Caesar of them all,
Not grave Aurelius, whom I thought of old
To follow, but has fallen short therein:
Crossed by the grievous troubling of the world.
Yet nothing of your praise have I not paid,
Lords of Olympus! When the great Sun shines,
I am Apollo's priest: hers too I am,
The Mighty Mother, who from land to land
Moves with supreme and battlemented brows.
The robe of her anointing, hangs it not,
Tarnished and worn, upon my shoulder yet;
This robe, still dreadful with the bull's black blood?
The citizens of Antioch scorn my state:
The purple-born, a scholar! the world's king,
Hid in the cloak of sad philosophy.
O servants of a vain and distraught man,
Ill taken for a god: is that your pride?
I, who am Caesar; Caesar's too, these rags;
With a more proud humility disdain,
O Christians! your imperial show and sin;
For I am votarist of Gods, who wore
Man's true flesh never: nor myself have worn
Man's empty shadows of magnificence,
But am the lover of magnificent Gods.
Wondrous Antinous! Oh, fairer thou
Than the dim beauty of Christ crucified;
Thee too among the Everlasting Ones,
With Eleusinian feast, have I adored.
Beneath the vast night in old Egypt thou
Gavest thyself for Hadrian: neither foul,
Nor any slave's death, was thy death; for Nile
Took thee. Then in the heavens burned one more star,
And earth reddened with unknown lily flowers,
O consecrate and fair! for joy of thee.
Now am I votarist of thine, as I
Of each magnificent and marvellous God.

In their high converse only is my trust.
Through the dim German forests have I marched,
Prince of the Roman eagles, Mars my lord,
As in the triumphing days of Rome: Mars grant,
That through these oriental empires Rome
Triumph! And Mars will grant it, even as thou
Foretellest me great glory, Maximus!
A golden presage: Julian shall increase,
Till Alexander be less great a name.
Once with tumultuary voice of power,
August! the Legions hailed me: me they bore,
In mail and purple, vehemently crowned
Their monarch, and the world's: who one day yet
May clash their swords through mine unarmoured breast.
But none can take from me the treasure: none
Mine adoration of Divinity.
Caverns of haunted Ephesus! Your gloom,
Sweet with the dreamy incense, showed my youth
Its earliest of mysterious ways: whenceforth,
Up mounting, brightening, labyrinths I traced
Mine homeward journey to the eternal Light:
Till at Eleusis, as I strove to it,
The perfect benediction fell. And now,
When the abhorrent voices crowd on me,
Christian with Christian warring, all with truth,
Retired within the secret chambers, there
Eleusis comforts me: I know and live.
The earth has yet her holy motherhood:
The earth has honour yet, and honours some,
True children of her heart, and of the sun;
True masters of the mysteries, who walk
Surely and nobly the vast world, its kings:
Lords of the laws, that bind the Pleiades,
And order the outgoings of the morn.
O kingly prophet of the golden thigh!
O mighty Samian master! Thy mild hand
Stroked in Crotona the white eagle: thou
Wast tamer of man's heart, the wild beast there!
I too, whom nations through the world revere,
Nor suffer me from old Lucretius' height
Contemplate the laborious march of men,
But draw me downward to their wants: I too
Salvation through the terrible midnight
Have seen, lapped round with glory. So my soul,
Up to the golden air in welcome death
Passing, shall fall within the calms of God.
Yet not alone: thou too shalt pass with me,
Brother and friend upon that last of ways,
Divinest of all living men: mine own
Lover and counsellor, Iamblichus!
One year shall free us both: one ecstasy
Make thy soul mine, mine thine; both lost in Light.