COME, Hesper, and ye Gods of mountain waters, Come, nymphs and Dryades, Come, silken choir of soft Pierian daughters, And girls of lakes and seas, Evoe! and evoe Io! crying, Fill all the earth and air; Evoe! till the quivering woods, replying, Shout back the echo there! All day in soundless swoon or heavy slumber, We lay among the flowers, But now the stars break forth in countless number To watch the dewy hours; And now Iacchus, beautiful and glowing, Adown the hill-side comes, Mid tabrets shaken high, and trumpets blowing, And resonance of drums. The leopard-skin is round his smooth white shoulders, The vine-branch round his hair, Those eyes that rouse desire in maid-beholders Are glittering, glowworm-fair; Crowned king of all the provinces of pleasure, Lord of a wide domain, He comes, and brings delight that knows no measure, A full Saturnian reign. Take me, too, Maenads, to your fox-skin chorus, Rose-lipped like volute-shells, For I would follow where your host canorous Roars down the forest-dells; The sacred frenzy rends my throat and bosom! I shout, and whirl where He, Our Vine-God, tosses like some pale blood-blossom Swept on a stormy sea. Around his car, with streaming hair, and frantic, The Maenads and wild gods And shaggy fauns and wood-girls corybantic Toss high the ivy-rods; Brown limbs with white limbs madly intertwining Whirl in a fiery dance, Till, when at length Orion is declining, We glide into a trance. The satyr's heart is faintly, faintly beating, The choir of nymphs is mute; Iacchus up the western slope is fleeting, Uncheered by horn or flute; Hushed, hushed are all the shouting and the singing, The frenzy, the delight, Since out into the cold gray air upspringing, The morning-star shines bright. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONNET: TO FANNY by JOHN KEATS LEXINGTON; 1775 by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER HYMN FOR ALL SAINTS DAY IN THE MORNING by HENRY ALFORD TWELVE SONNETS: 4. LONELY SEASONS by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913) |