I saw a staring ****** stand Where holy Dionysus died, And tear the heart out of his side. And lay the heart upon her hand And bear that beating heart away; Of Magnus Annus at the spring, As though God's death were but a play.
Another Troy must rise and set, Another lineage feed the crow, Another Argo's painted prow Drive to a flashier bauble yet. The Roman Empire stood appalled: It dropped the reins of peace and war When that fierce ****** and her Star Out of the fabulous darkness called.
II
In pity for man's darkening thought He walked that room and issued thence In Galilean turbulence; The Babylonian starlight brought A fabulous, formless darkness in; Odour of blood when Christ was slain Made all platonic tolerance vain And vain all Doric discipline.
Everything that man esteems Endures a moment or a day. Love's pleasure drives his love away, The painter's brush consumes his dreams; The herald's cry, the soldier's tread Exhaust his glory and his might: Whatever flames upon the night Man's own resinous heart has fed.
