Page:Ephemera, Greek prose poems (IA ephemeragreek00buckrich).pdf/20



On the wide green slopes of Parnassus there is a marble temple, a very holy temple in the eyes of men, where a god speaks in a mysterious way.

Purified by the ritual ablutions, clad in spotless white and crowned with laurel, a young priestess, very pale and very beautiful, approaches the dread chasm which opens upon the underworld.

Her flesh quivers at the approaching ecstasy, her breast rises and falls in the divine afflation, her eyes darken with prophecy. How frail she is to be the mouthpiece of a god! But at length her limbs relax, her head falls forward and, very slowly, she begins to speak.

But I—I love the simple gods of the woods and fields; they are nearer, they speak more gently, and their voice is the song of birds and the murmurings of the night.