And to this ancient heart of mine
Libation poured from urns of wine;
By day and night in the lulled streets
They drank upon their marble seats;
The milk-white oxen bound with bays
Entered from steepy mountain ways,
While on the pavements, pale and still,
The vintage ran, a rosy rill,
And where the red horizons are
I heard a revel from afar,
But could not break and dared not stir
To where the drunken minstrels were;
Where lowly in an April sky
Blossoms and branches fluttered by,
With grapes uptossed and garments rent,
And joy in the whole firmament.”
Libation poured from urns of wine;
By day and night in the lulled streets
They drank upon their marble seats;
The milk-white oxen bound with bays
Entered from steepy mountain ways,
While on the pavements, pale and still,
The vintage ran, a rosy rill,
And where the red horizons are
I heard a revel from afar,
But could not break and dared not stir
To where the drunken minstrels were;
Where lowly in an April sky
Blossoms and branches fluttered by,
With grapes uptossed and garments rent,
And joy in the whole firmament.”
“Their world,” I said, “was darkling night
Until thou cam’st, Hermaphrodite;
Somewhere thy heart grew great, I think,
To liberate our souls by drink,
Even as on thy pagan tresses
Men yearned in sleep for thy caresses,
Or from their beakers drank to slake
The thirst that made their fury wake,
But by the first divine oblation
Kindled to love an incantation,
Unquenched since then.”
Until thou cam’st, Hermaphrodite;
Somewhere thy heart grew great, I think,
To liberate our souls by drink,
Even as on thy pagan tresses
Men yearned in sleep for thy caresses,
Or from their beakers drank to slake
The thirst that made their fury wake,
But by the first divine oblation
Kindled to love an incantation,
Unquenched since then.”
28
