EXORDIUM
FRoM darkness of fugitive thought,
From problems bewildering the brain,
Deep lights beyond heaven unsought,
Dead faces seen dimly in rain ;
From the depths of Mind’s caverns, the fire
Reclaims the old magical lyre;
The ways of creation are nought,
If only, O mother, O Muse, I may measure Thy melodies
in me again !
How wayward, how feeble the child
Three watched from the stars at his birth ;
Erato the fierce and the mild ;
Polymnia grave ; and the girth
Broad-girdled of gold and desire,
Melpomene’s terrible lyre,
That lifts up her life in the wild,
The star-piercing pzan, and floats in mid-ether, and
sinks to the earth.
These three of the Muses were mine;
They nurtured and knew me and kissed.
Erato was hidden in wine;
Polymnia dawned in the mist :
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