The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1901-03-17
CURRENT VERSE.


oh, that knew where to find tbee--to fall, and
encompass thy knees
Thou, as thou art, austere, with thy turrets and
dungecning keys, ~
Thou with the frondage OF oak, that enshadows
they grave, straight browsi
] would cling to thy knees till thou wouldst al
solve the Corybant's vows
Even his VOWS who was mine, ere the voice from
the forcste5 hill.
With the flutes and the cymbals, he followed and
them he followeth stip.
He follows. he dreams, with wide eyes all bare
of the curtains of sleep;
lie heeds not the dawn the height, the
shadows upward they creep
II the arrows of winter be forged, or the fame
OF the summer be fannedl
lie feels not the thong of the priest nor the
blade in the lean, wild hand;
erlmson the thorn-set path where the foot I'M
sandaled hath trod.
lie stayeth for none he shall meet-he hears but
the flutes of the God,
The mother that bare him. the father that guided
aield his young feet
Into the wilderness journey they come to thy
desolate seat.
At the foot of a fir tree they find him. Trembling,
their knees and their speech:
Come away, thou, our support Like the vine
in the wind we outreach;
Prop have we none; stripped We are
shaken by every gust;
Withers unripened fruit and we stoop to be
gathered to dust.
Leave thy dark seat by the fir tree, and hear us
while yet thou mayst heart
Their voices die of on the waste, and the sigh of
the fir tree comes drear.
They wait for the voice in response; he upTears
his thin form from the sod:
''What say We? Who speakethI / hear-I hear
but the flutes OF the God!''
1 was the maiden betrothed. and surely" they
said thou shalt go.
Shalt touch his dead heart into life, and his
eyes shall regain their lost giow!'
Breathless. l trod the lone ways. Among the
mad priests, as he ranged,
/ beheld whom | loved but ali! ! beheld him
how changed how estrangedl
/ had drawn MIN apart from their throng, | had
whispered the words that are charms,
Had touched his dead heart into life, and pill
lowed his head in my arms;
But farther and farther aloof to the notes Of wild
music he trod.
"Who folIows?" ne cried-"who follows? | hear
but the flutes of the God!'
Oh that I knew where to find theel Whether,
mid autumns increase,
With the young of the year around thee, thou
givest them plenty with peace:
Or whether, dark-thoughted, remote through the
waste thy deity roves,
And the eyes of thy lions glance fire, in the
twilight of dells and of groves.
Bright are their eyes impatient, the blast of the
desert their breath
Who crosseth their path, without thee, shall
surely be doomed unto death.
Yet mother of gods and Of men, of the broods OF
the earth and the rocks
Thou, Berecyntha hear by thy lo.e, by his dark
flowing locks,
BY the smile on his lips, by the dream in his
eyes, thou sendest at viii,
BY the soft-drawn sigh while thou watchest his
slumber amid the high hill!
Thine Atys thou hast, though sleeper; the care
from his forehead is smoothed;
But he whom / love never sleeps, and his wild
eyes never De soothed!
Give him but peace and my arms. and quiet
supreme in the end;
Bid some old fir tree his branches above us in
shelter extend;
Then the life to the air the fIail substance that
held it awhile to the clod:
So shall he waEen and madden no more to the
flutes of the God.
Edith " Thomas. in the Atlantic.