Mandragora/The Bassarid
- THE BASSARID
DANCE with the Maenad crowd;
Follow your pulses' beat.
Toss back your hair from your forehead proud;
Crush in the madness of cymbals loud
The hyacinths at your feet.
Deep in the dewy dawn,
Where the serpent of passion hisses,
Pan and Sylvan and Satyr and Faun,
Let them whirl you on through the branches torn,
And stain your mouth with kisses.
With parted lips and with eyes
Brimming and drugged and bright,
Cry aloud your wild Thessalian cries,
Cry aloud your Phrygian ecstasies,
In the hot perfumed night.
Let the wood-spurge cling to your waist,
Let the woodbine tangle your hair,
Let your breast by hazels be embraced
And from oozing green-wood sap be a taste
Of pungent ivy there.
With wild-flung arms and with limbs
Shuddering and wounded lips,
Cry aloud as your brain in frenzy swims,
And loosed by the sweetness of Bacchic hymns,
Your vine-wreathed girdle slips.
As the torches flicker and fall,
Flame on through the dew-dark wood;
Answer the thrill of the mad god's call
To the bitter end of the festival
With every drop of your blood.
Fear not. When back you steal,
Broken and weary, to me,
With oil and wine I will surely heal
Each bruise and hurt that your senses feel,
As I take you on my knee.
I will heal each hurt of your outraged soul,
Each mark of the wood-god's force.
I will cause the eternal sea to roll
With waves more pure than the boreal pole
Over your least remorse!