Madison Cawein - Dionysos lyrics
"O Dionysos! Dionysos! the ivy-crowned! O let me sing thy triumph ere I die!" Within my sleep a Maenad came to me: A harp of crimson agate strung with gold Wailed 'neath her waxen fingers, and her heart 'Neath the white gauze, thro' which a moonlight shone, Kept time with its wild throbbings to her song. "Aegeus sleeps, O Dionysos! sleeps Pale 'neath the tumbling waves that sing his name Eternally at my dew-glist'ning feet. And so he died, O Dionysos! died! O let me sing thy triumph ere I die! "With the shrill syrinx and the kissing clang Of silver cymbals clashed by Ethiopes swart, O, pard-drawn youth, thou didst awake the world To joy and pleasure with thy sunny wine! Mad'st India bow and the dun, flooding Nile Grow purple in the radiance of the wine Cast from the richness of Silenus' cup, Whiles yet the heavens of heat saw dances wild Whirl mid the redness of the Libic sands, Which greedy drank the Bacchan*lian draught Spun from the giddy bowl, a rose-tinged mist, O'er the slant edge, red twinkling in the eye Of brazen Ra, fierce turning overhead. What made gold Horus smile with golden lips? Anubis dire forget his ghosts to lead To Hell's profoundness, and then stay to sip One winking bubble from the wine-god's cup? What made Osiris, 'mid the palms of Nile, Leave Isis dreaming, and the frolic Pan's Harsh trebles follow as a roaring bull, Far as the gleaming temples of Indra, And mourned in Memphis by his tawny priests? It was thy joys, sun-nourished fire of wine! The brimming purple of the hollow gold They tasted and they worshiped—gods themselves! "Wan Echo sat once in a spiral shell; She, from its sea-dyed maziness of pearl, Saw the mixed pageant dancing on the strand, Where Nereus slept upon an isle of crags, And o'er the slope of his far-foaming head The strangeness of the orgies wildly cried, Till the frore god shook many a billow curl, Serened his face and stretched a welcome hand With civil utt'rance for the Bacchus horn. But now there tarries in her eye-balls' disks That nomad troop, and naught her tongue may say Save jostling words that haunt her muffled ears Like feeble wave-beats in a deep sea-cave. "Ah! the white stars, O Dionysos! now Have dropped their glittering blossoms slowly down Behind the snowy mountains in the West. Aegeus sleeps, hushed by my murmuring harp, And I have sung thy triumph; let me die!"