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(Excerpt)
RAGES storm around the island; purple-swathed through mist and gloom | |
| Sinks the sun as an old blind emperor to a foe-beleaguered tomb; | |
| Heaves broad the darkling ocean from abysses of the West, | |
| Like the first great throb of anger of Megæra’s snake-bound breast; | |
| Then bursts upon the grinding reef that hurls it back in foam, | 5 |
| And thundering down the cavern, mocks the granite-guarded Gnome; | |
| And the North-wind, speeding from his lair on dread Uxantos’ steep, | |
| Stirs the watchers on Gobæum in their demon-haunted sleep, | |
| And ploughs the dunes of Crozon, and shakes the towers of Is, | |
| And veils the candid lights of Jove with the ghastly shades of Dis; | 10 |
| And through brumal fog and drowning spray and elemental roar | |
| Grow the solemn hours to midnight on the wild Osismian shore. | |
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| A moment, and blue lightnings cleave the smoke-pall of the sea; | |
| A moment, like the swooning hush ere cataclysms be; | |
| What shrieks reverberating rang from Sena’s tortured coast! | 15 |
| What Mænad-shapes, with vapory hair and white arms heaven-tossed, | |
| Stood beckoning on the cliffs keen marge to the Furies of the cloud, | |
| And glided ’mong the death-struck oaks, with weeping faces bowed! * * * * * | |
| The Druid temple crowns the isle, girt by the death-struck trees, | |
| Reared in the night of time by hands from Defrobanian seas; | 20 |
| Around it the rude monoliths in solemn order rise | |
| That guard the great quadrangle of the Caer of Sacrifice, | |
| Where on the central stone converge the triple rays which flow | |
| When in solstice and in equinox the dawn’s red banners glow,— | |
| Rays brightening into symbols of the Name alone divine, | 25 |
| The Logos of his utterance, his love-bestowing sign. | |
| But the pure faith waned in Arvor’s bounds: truth’s white unmingled beam | |
| Was decomposed to gaudy hues, and dream engendered dream, | |
| And the Teuton sent traditions dark from his forest-girt abodes, | |
| And the Roman brought the dower of his twice mishandled gods; | 30 |
| False Mithras vexed the Circles; in all the islands shone | |
| With Sabian pomp the temple, or with deadly flame the stone; * * * * * | |
| The red sun shines on cliff and shore, on revelry and tears, | |
| On the wolf-skins of the Velites and their sheaves of slender spears: | |
| Shouting, they throng the galleys, and bear, with haughty smile, | 35 |
| The world-familiar standards to the lone Armoric Isle; | |
| And the Isle waits vacant, voiceless, all life and symbol fled, | |
| Save the smoke of dying embers faintly circling o’er the dead. | |
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