Poems (Loveman)/Ode to Dionysus
ODE TO DIONYSUS.
I.
O thou, from whose blown brow the vine-leaves fall, Into thy beaker brimmed with Attic wine;At whose behest the hoofed Pans do call, Across the curved pathway where thy shrineLies swarded deep in arbute-boughs that stallLinkt faun and satyr, nymph and bacchanal; Methinks I saw thee wind thy lovely way, Into the wood's heart scarce at break of day,Heard the shrill fluting of thy maenads, And glimps'd thy dusky shepherd-lads,Purse their soft lips to pray.
II.
Hither came Psyche, Cupid by her side, I heard them whisper virginal sweet vows;She pluckt an azure blossom, dewy-eyed, He bent to kiss her lips beneath the boughs,His pinions fluttering wide.Hither stept rosy Dian from the rest, To pledge her maidenhood before thy shrine;Two winged boys percht on each budding breast, As chaste as Appenine.And all the faun-folk, pouting lips awry, Entered the old Ephesian solitude,Lingered a sweet space, then with half a ery, Vanished into the wood.
III.
O fairer than the buds that bind thy brow! O sweeter than the lips that press thy own! I will forsake all chances of renown,And bear me gentle suppliance to thy vow; Yet make me thine, and by forgotten rills, Down quiet fallows into shadowing deeps, Where Love with ivied thyrse unheeding keeps And Time suns aimlessly—Be mine the night that laps the lonely hills,The sleep that hinges on eternity.