Crying: ‘The city is to fall!
This is an evil god that stays
Upon our temple’s precinct ways;
Not to the new-starred age came thus
The vine-girt Dionysius.
Nor where the youths and maidens sing,
Stooped he to flame and ruining.
Beautiful was this god and tender,
Whose footfall loosed Olympian splendour,
Where on the golden hair were set
Windflowers for a coronet.
And never in those dusk eyes broods
The fury of the multitudes,
Nor on the petalled mouth dares stray
The lightning’s quick, revengeful ray....’ ”
This is an evil god that stays
Upon our temple’s precinct ways;
Not to the new-starred age came thus
The vine-girt Dionysius.
Nor where the youths and maidens sing,
Stooped he to flame and ruining.
Beautiful was this god and tender,
Whose footfall loosed Olympian splendour,
Where on the golden hair were set
Windflowers for a coronet.
And never in those dusk eyes broods
The fury of the multitudes,
Nor on the petalled mouth dares stray
The lightning’s quick, revengeful ray....’ ”
I said: “O never should it be
Twice to endure this agony;
Even as when, in light steeped thus,
Rain ravages the Caucasus,
Or on the cleft Hydaspian walls
Thunder with sleet and darkness falls;
But in some garden green, where deep,
Hours shine and glitter and fall asleep,
White and eternal, mild and still,
When evening comes with stars that fill
Night with her prescience - thou shalt stand
With the gold apple in thy hand,
Twice to endure this agony;
Even as when, in light steeped thus,
Rain ravages the Caucasus,
Or on the cleft Hydaspian walls
Thunder with sleet and darkness falls;
But in some garden green, where deep,
Hours shine and glitter and fall asleep,
White and eternal, mild and still,
When evening comes with stars that fill
Night with her prescience - thou shalt stand
With the gold apple in thy hand,
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