Orpheus

Our voiceless clefts and spires of delicate hue, Changing and lost in the exultant blue, By fire and whirlwind fashioned and then riven, Invoke fresh song, with deep solemnity In noble notes of mastery answering thee, By some young tumult in our old hearts driven ; And this immortal path of splintered rock Shall lead the wild chant to the sky, and mock The nectared feast of Gods with its impassioned shock. Deep-mouthed, I, earthquake, wake in echoing thunder. I break my mother’s breast; I tear asunder The womb that bore me ; I arise in terror, Threatening to ruin her, crag, crown, and column, Reverberate music of that mighty and solemn Call of creation, Vulcan’s awful mirror. I rend the sky with clamour terrible, Shaking the thrones of earth and heaven and hell, Confound the universe in universal error. I sound the awful note that summons mortals, As I awake, to pass the dreadful portals And face the gloom of Dis, the unnameable immortals. Soft our mild music steals through thunderous pauses, A phrase made magic by the Second Causes, The mighty Ones that dwell beneath the empyrean. We, vines and fruits and trees with autumn laden, Sing as the bride-song of a married maiden Before the god-like vigour of the man 66