| I saw a staring virgin 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; |
| And then did all the Muses sing |
| Of Magnus
Annus at the spring, |
| As though God’s death were but a play. |
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| 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 virgin and her Star |
| Out of the
fabulous darkness called. |
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|
| 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. |
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| 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. |