Poems of Adoration :: :: University of Virginia Library

COME to a revel, happy men!
Far away on the hills a wine of joy
Makes golden dew in drops, that cloy
The fissures of the glen,
The crevices of rock;
Caught in its sweetness thyme and cistus lock;
The hills are white and gold
In every fold;
The hills are running milk and honey-rivers;
Yet not a thyrsus on a mountain quivers.

II

Does not the distant city cry,
As if filled with an unexpected rout,
Alleluia, shout on shout?
Nor can the city high
Exult in song enough,
Tuning to smoothness all her highways rough.
And yet the Bromian god
Hath never trod
With choir the pavements, nor each grape-haired dancer
Given to the mountain-streams a city's answer.

III

Behold, O men, a vivid light!
Is it the lightning-fire that blazes wide,

Or torches lit on every side
That turn the sky so bright?
Through this great, sudden day,
No levin-gendered god's triumphant way
The brands of pine confess:
A loveliness
Within that mighty light of larger story
Is come among us with exceeding glory.

IV

Ye that would drink, come forth and drink!
Within the hills are rivers white and gold;
Clear mid the day a portent to behold.
Stoop at the water's brink,
Seek where the light is great!
Why should the revellers for revel wait?
Now ye can drink as thirsty stags
Where no source flags.
Forth to the water-brooks, forth in the morning;
Forth to the light that out of light is dawning!

V

Tiresias, with thy wreath, not thou!
Gray prophet of the fount of Thebes, behold
A prophet neither blind nor old,
Spare and of solemn brow,
Is risen to make all young:
He dwells among
The freshets of the stream. Come to the Waters;
O Sons of Adam, haste, and Eva's daughters!

This revel, children, is a revelry
Ascetic, of a joy that cannot be
Unless we fast and pray and wear no wreaths,
Nor brandish cones the forest-fir bequeathes,
Nor make a din—but sweet antiphonies—
Nor blow through organ-reeds to sing to these,
But of ourselves make song: it is a feast,
That by the breath of deserts is increased;
And by ablution in the river lifts
Its grain to crystal—earth so full of gifts
Most exquisite, breaths that are infinite
Of infinite judgment, hesitations light
Of infinite choiceness, life so fine, so fine,
Since of our flesh we welcome the Divine;
Since by our fast and reticence, our food
From honey-bees in haunts of solitude,
O mighty Prophet of the river-bank,
We see that light that makes the sun a blank,
As a white dove makes a whole region dim;
See in the greatness of the great Light's rim
One we must fall down under would we win
The ecstasy of revel—all our sin
Borne from us by the Wine-Cup in a hand
That bleeds about the vessel's golden stand,
Bleeds as the white throat of a lamb just slain.
Behold! No Evoe at that poured red stain,
No Evoe—Alleluia! He is dumb:
But let us laud Him, Eleutherius come!