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.
