‘Abide with me!’ But uttering cries,
They fled to ghastly melodies....”
They fled to ghastly melodies....”
“He saw my brethren flee,” he said,
“And some they buried with the dead.
Others in pillared colonnade
They scourged and crucified and flayed!”
“And some they buried with the dead.
Others in pillared colonnade
They scourged and crucified and flayed!”
I murmured: “For three-thousand years
Is that tale done, yet bitter tears
Come to me now — to clasp and close
The delicate ecstasy of those
That vanished by no fault of mine.
Radiant, remote, these friends of thine,
So long ago! Another says
That in Pieria many days
The vintage through an autumn mist
Shone purple amid amethyst,
While in their vines one eve of gold
The tortured god walked as of old,
Bacchus, no doubt.”
Is that tale done, yet bitter tears
Come to me now — to clasp and close
The delicate ecstasy of those
That vanished by no fault of mine.
Radiant, remote, these friends of thine,
So long ago! Another says
That in Pieria many days
The vintage through an autumn mist
Shone purple amid amethyst,
While in their vines one eve of gold
The tortured god walked as of old,
Bacchus, no doubt.”
He swayed in grief:
“They perished through my misbelief.
A young priest in the temple called:
‘Lo you! this city is enthralled!
From Asia, in the wine-red dawn,
These revellers come hither drawn.
“They perished through my misbelief.
A young priest in the temple called:
‘Lo you! this city is enthralled!
From Asia, in the wine-red dawn,
These revellers come hither drawn.
19
