In melancholy search I see her roam O'er the steep peaks of Himalayas keen With the unmellowed frosts of Boreal storms, Then back again with that wild mother woe Writ in the anguished fire of her eyes,-- Back where old Atlas groans 'neath weight of worlds, And the Cimmerian twilight glooms the soul. Deep was her sleep in Persia's haunted vales, Where many a languid Philomela moaned The bursting sorrow of a bursting soul. I see her nigh Ionia's swelling seas Cull from the sands a labyrinthine shell, And hark the mystery of its eery voice Float from the hollow windings of its curl, Then cast it far into the weedy sea To view the salt-spray flash, like one soft plume Dropped from the wings of Eros, 'gainst the flame Of Helios' car down-sloping toward his bath. I see her beg a coral flute of red From a tailed Triton; and on Ithakan rocks High seated at the starry death of day, When Selene rose from off her salty couch To smile a glory on her face of sorrow, Pipe forth sad airs that made the Sirens weep In their green caves beneath the sodden sands, And hoar Poseidon clear his wrinkled front And still his surgy clamors to a sigh.
This do I see, and more; ah! yes, far more: I see her, 'mid the lonely groves of Crete, The wild hinds fright from the o'ervaulted green Of thickest boscage, tangling their close covert, With horror of her torches and her wail, "Persephone! Persephone!" till the pines Of rugged Dicte shuddered thro' their cones, And Echo shrieked down in her deepest chasms A wild reply unto her wild complaint; As wild as when she voiced those maidens' woe, Athenian tribute to stern Minos, king, When coiling grim the Minotaur they saw Far in his endless labyrinth of stone.
"O Dionysos! Dionysos! the ivy-crowned! O let me sing thy triumph ere I die!"
Within my sleep a Maenad came to me: A harp of crimson agate strung with gold Wailed 'neath her waxen fingers, and her heart 'Neath the white gauze, thro' which a moonlight shone, Kept time with its wild throbbings to her song.
"Aegeus sleeps, O Dionysos! sleeps Pale 'neath the tumbling waves that sing his name Eternally at my dew-glist'ning feet. And so he died, O Dionysos! died! O let me sing thy triumph ere I die!
"With the shrill syrinx and the kissing clang Of silver cymbals clashed by Ethiopes swart, O, pard-drawn youth, thou didst awake the world To joy and pleasure with thy sunny wine! Mad'st India bow and the dun, flooding Nile Grow purple in the radiance of the wine Cast from the richness of Silenus' cup, Whiles yet the heavens of heat saw dances wild Whirl mid the redness of the Libic sands, Which greedy drank the Bacchanalian draught Spun from the giddy bowl, a rose-tinged mist, O'er the slant edge, red twinkling in the eye Of brazen Ra, fierce turning overhead. What made gold Horus smile with golden lips? Anubis dire forget his ghosts to lead To Hell's profoundness, and then stay to sip One winking bubble from the wine-god's cup? What made Osiris, 'mid the palms of Nile, Leave Isis dreaming, and the frolic Pan's Harsh trebles follow as a roaring bull, Far as the gleaming temples of Indra, And mourned in Memphis by his tawny priests? It was thy joys, sun-nourished fire of wine! The brimming purple of the hollow gold They tasted and they worshiped--gods themselves!