DELPHI
Matrixed ’mid purple mountain steeps,
An ancient Grecian city sleeps.
Where rock-hewn fountains spill
Down scarlet-poppied hill;
Long time ago its temples fair
Rose, Doric-columned, on the air,
And voices told of riddles strange
That echoed down the mountain range;
And men and cities brought their all
To Delphi and the priestess’ thrall.
While in the mountain-pass a pipe
Played on and on and on—
A pipe played on.
Now up the aisles of olive-trees
Come wistful souls from over-seas,
From the Itean shore,
Past rose-hung cottage door,
And in the sacred fount they dip,
Or tell the lore with alien lip;
Or, dreaming, scan far snow-crowned heights,
Lit, as of old, with pagan lights.
While through the thyme, ’mid rock and pool,
The sheep-bells tinkle, water cool,—
And in the mountain pass, a pipe
Plays on and on and on—
A pipe plays on.
While glowworms blur the dewy gorse,
And stars float from their tidal source,
And Grecian peasants steal
By creaking wagon-wheel,
We ponder on this Life and Death
Within the taking of our breath;
So old, these ruined fanes that lie,
Beneath the temple of the sky!
So old these sacred stones that gleam
With the strange shining Delphic dream.
While in the mountain-pass the pipe
Plays on and on and on—
A pipe plays on.
So old, this silence trembles, brought
To solemn tension with our thought—
Deep as the mystic strain
Born in Apollo’s fane:
“Dear God, ’tis well no Pythoness
For us may prophesy or bless!
Well, that no riddle-verse controls
The will that slumbers in our souls!
Well, that we choose, calm, clear-eyed, free
To live and learn our truth from Thee!”—
Still in the mountain-pass the pipe
Plays on and on and on—
The pipe plays on.