Bacchante, by Jean Jules Pendariès (archival quality)

thingiverse

Men claim that gods have vanished;\nThe Golden Age has faded into memory,\nAnd Greece was a fleeting moment:\nYet on this hill we've known\nThe ancient madness and the ancient glory.\nUnder the thyrse held high,\nWe've felt the electrifying presence of the divine,\nAnd you, Bacchante, shod\nWith moonfire, and with moonlight all encompassed,\nHave danced upon the mystery-haunted earth.\nWith every autumn bloom,\nAnd with the brown and verdant leaves of vine,\nWe've adorned your hair divine;\nFrom the cupped hollow of your luscious bosom\nWe've sipped wine, Bacchante, rich purple wine.\nThe night grows mystical around us,\n Illuminated by glows and shadows cast\nBy moons long past;\nAnd in your steps, O dancer of our delight,\nWild phantoms move, invisible and swift.\nBehind, before us sweep\nMaenad and Bassarid in spectral procession,\nWith many an unheard shout;\nCithaeron looms with every festive peak\nOver this hill resolved to dream and question.\nWhat power flows through us,\nAnd makes the old delirium surge?\nAnd fills each ardent vein\nWith passion and with perilous rapture?\nDancer, of whom our votive hearts are eager,\nYou are that magical vessel\nFrom which pours the pagan incantation;\nUntil, in harmony,\nWithin our bardic blood and spirit burn\nThe dreams and fevers of antiquity.\nA digital reproduction of Bacchante, a poem by Clark Ashton Smith