He nodded slowly:
“My way was ever dim and lowly.
At night and by the torches’ fall
I glimpsed their moving Bacchanal,
Saw in the shadows lit and drear
The ghost of Bacchus hover near,
Then heard the shrill procession cry,
‘We, that were slaughtered once, draw nigh!
Peace dost thou seek and joy to bind,
Thou, that art kith and of our kind;
But never to this dancing mirth,
And never on the wild green earth,
And never under natal sun
Shalt thou find rest, O wearied One;
Deeper than the descending sea
Is grown thy immortality,
More solitary than the stone
That marks the city Pergamon,
Or the disquiet star that moves
Alone forever, and unloved, loves!’ ”
“My way was ever dim and lowly.
At night and by the torches’ fall
I glimpsed their moving Bacchanal,
Saw in the shadows lit and drear
The ghost of Bacchus hover near,
Then heard the shrill procession cry,
‘We, that were slaughtered once, draw nigh!
Peace dost thou seek and joy to bind,
Thou, that art kith and of our kind;
But never to this dancing mirth,
And never on the wild green earth,
And never under natal sun
Shalt thou find rest, O wearied One;
Deeper than the descending sea
Is grown thy immortality,
More solitary than the stone
That marks the city Pergamon,
Or the disquiet star that moves
Alone forever, and unloved, loves!’ ”
“This was a frenzy of thy brain;
There are no spectres, is no stain,
But what we make of good or ill
Holds us in fantasy until
We deem it such,” I comforted.
There are no spectres, is no stain,
But what we make of good or ill
Holds us in fantasy until
We deem it such,” I comforted.
He bowed his moonlit, pagan head:
“There was a murmur in their flight
“There was a murmur in their flight
29
