Grow vocal to me, O my shell divine!

    LXIII

     

         Ἄγε δη χέλυ δῖά μοι
        φωνάεσσα γένοιο·

    GROW vocal to me, O my shell divine ! 
    I cannot rest; 
    Not so doth Cypris pine 
    To raise her love to her undinted breast 
    When sun first warms the earth, as I require 
    To roll the heavy death from my recumbent lyre. 

    O whilom tireless voice, why art thou dumb ? 
    To-day I stood 
    Watching the Maenads come 
    From a dark fissure in the ilex-wood 
    Forth to the golden poplars and the light ; 
    My tingling senses leapt to join that concourse bright. 

    Passed is the crowd, passed with his buoyant flute 
    The Evian King : 
    My plectrum still is mute 
    Of beauty, of the halcyon's nest, of spring ; 
    Though deep within a vital madness teems, 
    And I am tossed with fierce, disjointed, wizard dreams. 

    Apollo, Dionysus passes by, 
    Adonis wakes, 
    Zephyr and Chloris sigh : 
    To me, alas, my lyre no music makes, 
    Though tortured, fluttering toward the strings I reach, 
    Mad as for Anactoria's lovely laugh and speech. 

    For thou—where, in some balmy, western isle 
    Each day doth bring 
    Seed-sowing, harvest smile, 
    And twilight drop of fruit for garnering, 
    Where north wind never blows—dost dwell apart, 
    Keeping a gentle people free from grief of heart. 

    Sun-god, return ! Break from thine old-world bower, 
    Thy garden set 
    With the narcissus-flower 
    And purple daphne ! To thy chariot get, 
    Glorious arise as on thy day of birth, 
    And spread illuminating order through the earth. 

    I scan the rocks : O sudden mountain-rill, 
    That sure hast heard 
    His footsteps on the hill, 
    Leaping from crag to crag to bring me word— 
    Lapse quiet at my feet; I hear along 
    My lyre the journeying tumult of an unbreathed song.