If with much grief thine eyes are wet,
Do as we do....forgive, forget....’
And shivering, swaying, crying on,
I followed them to Pergamon!”
Do as we do....forgive, forget....’
And shivering, swaying, crying on,
I followed them to Pergamon!”
“Like the fine purple Bacchic frieze
In our museum, where one sees
That pagan, vinous rout!” I cried,
“And there thou passest wonder-eyed;
Something that earth could not annul,
Lonely and brief and beautiful,
Yet saddened, O Hermaphrodite!”
In our museum, where one sees
That pagan, vinous rout!” I cried,
“And there thou passest wonder-eyed;
Something that earth could not annul,
Lonely and brief and beautiful,
Yet saddened, O Hermaphrodite!”
Tears glistened in his eyes like light;
Then, with a pale hand poisèd, he
Said in archaic melody:
“Before the luminous city-wall
Bacchus spoke: ‘Hearken to me, all!
In my youth, lovelier than the day,
I wandered o’er Ionia;
Here, outcast, mutable and graven,
They spurned me who besought them haven,
But I, who glimmered many a spring,
Violet-wreathed in wayfaring,
Drunken with wine and beauty yet,
In all those years could not forget....
Don yourselves robes of pallid lawn
And enter in their gates at dawn,
Then, with a pale hand poisèd, he
Said in archaic melody:
“Before the luminous city-wall
Bacchus spoke: ‘Hearken to me, all!
In my youth, lovelier than the day,
I wandered o’er Ionia;
Here, outcast, mutable and graven,
They spurned me who besought them haven,
But I, who glimmered many a spring,
Violet-wreathed in wayfaring,
Drunken with wine and beauty yet,
In all those years could not forget....
Don yourselves robes of pallid lawn
And enter in their gates at dawn,
13
