Songs Before Sunrise by Algernon Charles Swinburne
page 8 of 242 (03%)
page 8 of 242 (03%)
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We too have twisted through our hair
Such tendrils as the wild Loves wear, And heard what mirth the Maenads made, Till the wind blew our garlands bare And left their roses disarrayed, And smote the summer with strange air, And disengirdled and discrowned The limbs and locks that vine-wreaths bound. We too have tracked by star-proof trees The tempest of the Thyiades Scare the loud night on hills that hid The blood-feasts of the Bassarid, Heard their song's iron cadences Fright the wolf hungering from the kid, Outroar the lion-throated seas, Outchide the north-wind if it chid, And hush the torrent-tongued ravines With thunders of their tambourines. But the fierce flute whose notes acclaim Dim goddesses of fiery fame, Cymbal and clamorous kettledrum, Timbrels and tabrets, all are dumb That turned the high chill air to flame; The singing tongues of fire are numb That called on Cotys by her name Edonian, till they felt her come And maddened, and her mystic face Lightened along the streams of Thrace. |
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