Once like a lady
In a silken dress,
The serpent might eddy
Through the wilderness,
Billow and glow
And undulate
In a rustling flow
Of sinuous hate.
Now dull-eyed and leaden,
Of having lost
His Eden
He pays the cost.
He shuns the tree
That brought him low
As grown to be
Domestic; no
Temptations dapple,
From leaf to root,
The modern apple
Our meekest fruit.
Dragon and griffin
And basilisk
Whose stare could stiffen,
And the hot breath whisk
From the overbold
Braving a gaze
So freezing cold,
Who sings their praise
These latter days?
That venemous head
On a woman fair,—
Medusa’s dead
Of the hissing hair.
No beasts are made
Meet for the whir
Of that sunken blade
Excalibur.
No smithies forge
A shining sword
Fit for the gorge
Of a beast abhorred.
Pale Theseus
Would have no need,
Were he with us,
Of sword or thread;
For long has been set
The baleful star
Of Pasiphaë’s pet,
The Minotaur.
Though they are dead,
Those ancient ones,
Each bestial head
Dust under tons
Of dust, new beasts
Have come, their heirs,
Claiming their feasts
As the old did theirs.
Clawless they claw,
Fangless they rend;
And the stony maw
Crams on without end.
Still are arrayed
(But with brighter eyes)
Stripling and maid
For the sacrifice.
We cannot spare
This toll we pay
Of the slender, the fair,
The bright and the gay!
Gold and black crown,
Body slim and taut,
How they go down
’Neath the juggernaut!
Youth of the world,
Like scythèd wheat,
How they are hurled
At the clay god’s feet!
Hear them cry Holy
To stone and to steel,
See them bend lowly,
Loyal and leal,
Blood rendered and bone,
To steel and to stone.
They have forgot
The stars and the sun,
The grassy plot,
And waters that run
From rock to rock;—
Their only care
Is to grasp a lock
Of Mammon’s hair.
But you three rare
Friends whom I love
(With rhymes to swear
The depths whereof)
A book to you three
Who have not bent
The idolatrous knee,
Nor worship lent
To modern rites,
Knowing full well
How a just god smites
The infidel;
Three to whom Pan
Is no mere myth,
But a singing Man
To be reckoned with;—
Witness him now
In the mist and dew;
Lean and hear how
He carols to you:
“Gather as a flower
Living to your heart;
Let the full shower
Rankle and smart;
Youth is the coffer
Where all is hid;
All age may offer
Youth can outbid.
Blind with your beauty
The ranks of scorn,
Take for a duty
Pleasure; you were born
Joy to incur.
Ere the eyes are misted
With a rheumy blur,
Ere the speech is twisted
To a throaty slur,
Ere the cheeks are haggard;
Ere the prick of the spur
Finds you lame or laggard,
Do not demur!
When Time advances
Terrible and lone,
Recall there were dances
Though they be flown.
When Death plys the riddle
To which all are mute,
Remember the fiddle,
The lyre and the flute.”
To three who will heed
His song, nor brook
That a god should plead
In vain, a book.