Dionysia

The day is dead; and in the west

The slender crescent of the moon —

Diana's crystal-kindled crest —

Sinks hillward in a silvery swoon.

What is the murmur in the dell?

The stealthy whisper and the drip?—

A Dryad with her leaf-light trip?

Or Naiad o'er her fountain well?—

Who, with white fingers for her comb,

Sleeks her blue hair, and from its curls

Showers slim minnows and pale pearls,

And hollow music of the foam.

What is it in the vistaed ways

That leans and springs, and stoops and sways?—

The naked limbs of one who flees?

An Oread who hesitates

Before the Satyr form that waits,

Crouching to leap, that there she sees?

Or under boughs, reclining cool,

A Hamadryad, like a pool

Of moonlight, palely beautiful?

Or Limnad, with her lilied face,

More lovely than the misty lace

That haunts a star and gives it grace?

Or is it some Leimoniad,

In wildwood flowers dimly clad?

Oblong blossoms white as froth;

Or mottled like the tiger-moth;

Or brindled as the brows of death;

Wild of hue and wild of breath.

Here ethereal flame and milk

Blent with velvet and with silk;

Here an iridescent glow

Mixed with satin and with snow:

Pansy, poppy and the pale

Serpolet and galingale;

Mandrake and anemone,

Honey-reservoirs o’ the bee;

Cistus and the cyclamen,—

Cheeked like blushing Hebe this,

And the other white as is

Bubbled milk of Venus when

Cupid's baby mouth is pressed,

Rosy, to her rosy breast.

And, besides, all flowers that mate

With aroma, and in hue

Stars and rainbows duplicate

Here on earth for me and you.

Yea! at last mine eyes can see!

‘ Tis no shadow of the tree

Swaying softly there, but she!—

Mænad, Bassarid, Bacchant,

What you will, who doth enchant

Night with sensuous nudity.

Lo! again I hear her pant

Breasting through the dewy glooms —

Through the glow-worm gleams and glowers

Of the starlight;— wood-perfumes

Swoon around her and frail showers

Of the leaflet-tilted rain.

Lo, like love, she comes again,

Through the pale, voluptuous dusk,

Sweet of limb with breasts of musk.

With her lips, like blossoms, breathing

Honeyed pungence of her kiss,

And her auburn tresses wreathing

Like umbrageous helichrys,

There she stands, like fire and snow,

In the moon's ambrosial glow,

Both her shapely loins low-looped

With the balmy blossoms, drooped,

Of the deep amaracus.

Spiritual yet sensual,

Lo, she ever greets me thus

In my vision; white and tall,

Her delicious body there,—

Raimented with amorous air,—

To my mind expresses all

The allurements of the world.

And once more I seem to feel

On my soul, like frenzy, hurled

All the passionate past.— I reel,

Greek again in ancient Greece,

In the Pyrrhic revelries;

In the mad and Mænad dance

Onward dragged with violence;

Pan and old Silenus and

Faunus and a Bacchant band

Round me. Wild my wine-stained hand

O'er tumultuous hair is lifted;

While the flushed and Phallic orgies

Whirl around me; and the marges

Of the wood are torn and rifted

With lascivious laugh and shout.

And barbarian there again,—

Shameless with the shameless rout,

Bacchus lusting in each vein,—

With her pagan lips on mine,

Like a god made drunk with wine,

On I reel; and, in the revels,

Her loose hair, the dance dishevels,

Blows, and‘ thwart my vision swims

All the splendor of her limbs....

So it seems. Yet woods are lonely.

And when I again awake,

I shall find their faces only

Moonbeams in the boughs that shake;

And their revels, but the rush

Of night-winds through bough and brush.

Yet my dreaming — is it more

Than mere dreaming? Is some door

Opened in my soul? a curtain

Raised? to let me see for certain

I have lived that life before?