That made more luminous the night;
A long breath and an endless wail
That gathered in the burning gale;
But far beyond the city’s length
They swept, mænadic in their strength
And farther in their molten troth,
Shadeless or like a faint-veined moth,
Where delicate domes and legion spires
Kindled and shook as waves with lyres,
Each one a crimson fire to trace
In the last light on the last face,
I saw them pass and disappear,
The roseal host, their charioteer....
Then by my side from everywhere
The city’s folk assembled there,
With hands upheld as though to pray
All night, divinely into day,
From lips that once again dared speak
In lovely, dead, enamoured Greek,
Each bringing for my marble thirst
Flagons to break and grapes to burst;
And now it seemed as though, a stone,
I tried to stir - I strove to moan,
While the calm eyelids, curved to cling,
Trembled as if awakening,
And saw the crescent moon that spills
Silver upon the hollow hills,
And heard one voice above them all,
A long breath and an endless wail
That gathered in the burning gale;
But far beyond the city’s length
They swept, mænadic in their strength
And farther in their molten troth,
Shadeless or like a faint-veined moth,
Where delicate domes and legion spires
Kindled and shook as waves with lyres,
Each one a crimson fire to trace
In the last light on the last face,
I saw them pass and disappear,
The roseal host, their charioteer....
Then by my side from everywhere
The city’s folk assembled there,
With hands upheld as though to pray
All night, divinely into day,
From lips that once again dared speak
In lovely, dead, enamoured Greek,
Each bringing for my marble thirst
Flagons to break and grapes to burst;
And now it seemed as though, a stone,
I tried to stir - I strove to moan,
While the calm eyelids, curved to cling,
Trembled as if awakening,
And saw the crescent moon that spills
Silver upon the hollow hills,
And heard one voice above them all,
30
