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Saturnalia
And a fierce free joy flares in the land.
Men mutter runes in language dead,
By night, with rumbling drum,
In quaking groves where the woodland spirits are hailed.
To earth's brood of souls of old,
With covered heads and aspen wands,
Mist-shrouded priests do ancient rites;
The black ram's fleece is stained with blood.
That steams, dull red on the frozen ground;
And pale votaries shiver with the cold,
That numbs the earth, and etches patterned mirrors on the ponds.
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