Page:Songs before sunrise (IA beforesunrisongs00swinrich).pdf/17

 More joy to sing and be less sad, More heart to play and grow more glad?"

Play then and sing; we too have played, We likewise, in that subtle shade. 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,