Weave the dance, and raise again the sacred chorus;
Wreathe the garlands of the spring about the hair;
Now once more the meadows burst in bloom before us,
Crying swallows dart and glitter through the air.
Glints the plowshare in the brown and fragrant furrow;
Pigeons coo in shady coverts as they pair;
Come the furtive mountain folk from cave and burrow,
Lean, and blinking at the sunlight’s sudden glare.
Bright through midmost heaven moves the lesser Lion;
Hide the Hyades in ocean caverns hoar;
Past the shoulders of the sunset flames Orion,
Following the sisters seaward evermore.
Gleams the east at evening, lit by low Arcturus;
Out to subtle-scented dawns beside the shore,
Yet a little and the Pleiades will lure us:
Weave the dance and raise the chorus as of yore.
Far to eastward up the fabled gulf of Issus,
Northward, southward, westward, now the trader goes,
Passing headlands clustered yellow with narcissus,
Bright with hyacinth, with poppy, and with rose.
Shines the sea and falls the billow as undaunted,
Past the rising of the stars that no man knows,
Sails he onward through the islands siren-haunted,
Till the clashing gates of rock before him close.
Kindly Mother of the beasts and birds and flowers,
Gracious bringer of the barley and the grain,
Earth awakened feels thy sunlight and thy showers;
Great Demeter! Let us call thee not in vain;
Lead us safely from the seed-time to the threshing,
Past the harvest and the vineyard’s purple stain;
Let us see thy corn-pale hair the sunlight meshing,
When the sounding flails of autumn swing again.
_Yale Review_ _Louis V. Ledoux_