Читать книгу The Rosary of Pan - Alexander Maitland Stephen - Страница 5

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DEEP coolness of dim woodland cloisters,

Where the feverish heat of the day,

Transmuted to sibilant softness,

Is as foam from the breast of the bay—

In thy mystic alembic is mingled

The madness of moonbeams with fire

From the sun, and melodious echoes

Windswept from the sevenfold lyre.

Here twilight and dawn meet forever,

Untouched by the tide of the years,

Change or Death enter not through thy portals,

Nor desire of the flesh nor its fears.

Commingled with odors of tresses,

There are memories, fragrant and dim,

Of the lure of the breasts of our mother—

Faint perfume of body and limb.

We, Children of Morning, salute Thee!

Thy voice is not new to our ears.

Great God of the water and woodlands,

We greet Thee with laughter not tears.

For in dawns, far-distant and hoary,

When all life was a flame and a song,

We were Thine and Thy love was our guerdon,

Ere earth was bereft of its strong.

Ere the meek and the lowly, triumphant,

Bound our Mother with bondage of sin—

The Star not the Serpent ascendant—

We praised Thee with paean and hymn.

The shrine is re-builded. Thine altars

Await but the touch of Thy breath,

Cold flame of the Spirit to sunder

The bondage of Darkness and Death.

Thy presence is felt, though unspoken

The word that would call on thy name.

From the green gloom of silence unbroken

Comes—a motion, a breath or a flame?