Or where the sleepy garlands fall
Over the purple pedestal,
From the still-locked, ambrosial hair
Where violets and jonquils fare,
Down to the hyacinthine limbs,
By tears of joy, by chaunt of hymns,
Takes to his soul the Bacchic riot—
Never again shall he be quiet,
But in his brain there shall be ever
The violence and joy of fever,
Colour and perfume, sound and sight,
And a great world fulfilled with light;
A noise of singing, a cry, a sway,
Shelterless through the blinded day;
This is our new god, this is he
Who gives us immortality!
O ye, that fear the night to follow,
Dead is our Zeus, dead is Apollo;
There was a silence and a wind
That perished with their dreaming kind,
A suspiration of our faith
Crying to each transfigured wraith;
But here is he that comes again,
Beauty, in guise of man to men,
Clear, alternate, unveiled to view,
Hidden by none but free to sue
As a god greatly!’ They worshipped me,
Beatific in my sovranty,
Over the purple pedestal,
From the still-locked, ambrosial hair
Where violets and jonquils fare,
Down to the hyacinthine limbs,
By tears of joy, by chaunt of hymns,
Takes to his soul the Bacchic riot—
Never again shall he be quiet,
But in his brain there shall be ever
The violence and joy of fever,
Colour and perfume, sound and sight,
And a great world fulfilled with light;
A noise of singing, a cry, a sway,
Shelterless through the blinded day;
This is our new god, this is he
Who gives us immortality!
O ye, that fear the night to follow,
Dead is our Zeus, dead is Apollo;
There was a silence and a wind
That perished with their dreaming kind,
A suspiration of our faith
Crying to each transfigured wraith;
But here is he that comes again,
Beauty, in guise of man to men,
Clear, alternate, unveiled to view,
Hidden by none but free to sue
As a god greatly!’ They worshipped me,
Beatific in my sovranty,
27
