(A.C.S.)

One after one they leave thee, High Priest of Iacchus, Intoning thy melodies as winds intone The whisperings of leaves on sunlit days. And the sands are many And the seas beyond the sands are one In ultimate, so we here being many Are unity; nathless thy compeers, Knowing thy melody, Lulled with the wine of thy music Go seaward silently, leaving thee sentinel O'er all the mysteries, High Priest of Iacchus. For the lines of life lie under thy fingers, And above the vari-coloured strands Thine eyes look out unto the infinitude Of the blue waves of heaven, And even as Triplex Sisterhood Thou fingerest the threads knowing neither Cause nor the ending, High Priest of Iacchus, Draw'st forth a multiplicity Of strands, and, beholding The colour thereof, raisest thy voice Towards the sunset, O High Priest of Iacchus! And out of the secrets of the inmost mysteries Thou chantest strange far-sourced canticles: O High Priest of Iacchus! Life and the ways of Death her Twin-born sister, that is life's counterpart, And of night and the winds of night; Silent voices ministering to the souls Of hamadryads that hold council concealèd In streams and tree-shadowing Forests on hill slopes, O High Priest of Iacchus, All the manifold mystery Thou makest a wine of song, And maddest thy following even With visions of great deeds And their futility, O High Priest of Iacchus! Though thy co-novices are bent to the scythe Of the magian wind that is voice of Persephone, Leaving thee solitary, master of initiating Mænads that come through the Vine-entangled ways of the forest Seeking, out of all the world, Madness of Iacchus, That being skilled in the secrets of the double cup They might turn the dead of the world Into pæans, O High Priest of Iacchus, Wreathed with the glory of thy years of creating Entangled music, Breathe! Now that the evening cometh upon thee, Breathe upon us, that low-bowed and exultant Drink wine of Iacchus, that since the conquering Hath been chiefly containèd in the numbers Of them that, even as thou, have woven Wicker baskets for grape clusters Wherein is concealèd the source of the vintage, O High Priest of Iacchus, Breathe thou upon us Thy magic in parting! Even as they thy co-novices, At being mingled with the sea, While yet thou madest thy canticles Serving upright before the altar That is bound about with shadows Of dead years wherein thy Iacchus Looked not upon the hills, that being Uncared for, praised not him in entirety. O High Priest of Iacchus, Being now near to the border of the sands Where the sapphire girdle of the sea Encinctureth the maiden Persephone, released for the spring, Look! Breathe upon us The wonder of the thrice encinctured mystery Whereby thou being full of years art young, Loving even this lithe Persephone That is free for the seasons of plenty; Whereby thou being young art old And shalt stand before this Persephone Whom thou lovest, In darkness, even at that time That she being returned to her husband Shall be queen and a maiden no longer, Wherein thou being neither old nor young Standing on the verge of the sea Shalt pass from being sand, O High Priest of Iacchus, And becoming wave Shalt encircle all sands, Being transmuted through all The girdling of the sea.

O High Priest of Iacchus, Breathe thou upon us!

Note.--This apostrophe was written three years before Swinburne's death.

DORIA [Greek]

Be in me as the eternal moods of the bleak wind, and not As transient things are--gaiety of flowers. Have me in the strong loneliness of sunless cliffs And of grey waters. Let the gods speak softly of us In days hereafter, The shadowy flowers of Orcus Remember Thee.