Page:Eight Harvard Poets.djvu/48

 SATURNALIA

N earth's womb the old gods stir, Fierce chthonian dieties of old time. With cymbals and rattle of castanets, And shriek of slug-horns, the North Wind Bows the oak and the moaning fir,

In nature, dead, the life gods stir, From Rhadamanthus and the Isles, Where Saturn rules the Age of Gold, Come old, old ghosts of bygone gods; While dim mists earth's outlines blur.

In men's hearts the mad gods rise And fill the streets with revelling, With torchlight that glances on frozen pools. With tapers starring the thick-fogged night, A-dance, like strayed fireflies,

In driven clouds the old gods come, When fogs the face of Apollo have veiled; A fear of things, unhallowed, strange, 37