Orpheus

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 : 15