Intimations

I.     Is it uneasy moonlight     On the restless field, that stirs?     Or wild white meadow-blossoms     The night-wind bends and blurs?     Is it the dolorous water,     That sobs in the woods and sighs?     Or heart of an ancient oak-tree,     That breaks and, sighing, dies?     The wind is vague with the shadows     That wander in No-Man's Land;     The water is dark with the voices     That weep on the Unknown strand.     O ghosts of the winds that call me!     O ghosts of the whispering waves!     As sad as forgotten flowers     That die upon nameless graves!     What is this thing you tell me     In tongues of a twilight race,     Of death, with the vanished features,     Mantled, of my own face? II.     The old enigmas of the deathless dawns     And riddles of the all immortal eves,     That still o'er Delphic lawns     Speak as the gods spoke through oracular leaves     I read with new-born eyes,     Remembering how, a slave;     They buried me, a living sacrifice,     Once in a dead king's grave.     Or crowned with hyacinth and helichrys,     How, towards the altar in the marble gloom,     Hearing the magadis     Dirge through the pale amaracine perfume,     'Mid chanting priests I trod,     With never a sigh or pause,     To give my life to pacify a god,     And save my country's cause.     Again: Cyrenian roses on wild hair,     And oil and purple smeared on breasts and cheeks,     How, with mad torches there,     Reddening the cedars of Cithron's peaks,     With gesture and fierce glance,     Lascivious Mnad bands     Once drew and slew me in the Pyrrhic dance,     With Bacchanalian hands. III.     In eons of the senses,     My spirit knew of yore,     I found the Isle of Circe     And felt her magic lore;     And still the soul remembers     What I was once before.     She gave me flowers to smell of     That wizard branches bore,     Of weird and sorcerous beauty,     Whose stems dripped human gore     Their scent when I remember     I know that world once more.     She gave me fruits to eat of     That grew upon the shore,     Of necromantic ripeness,     With human flesh at core     Their taste when I remember     I know that life once more.     And then, behold! a serpent,     That glides my face before,     With eyes of tears and fire     That glare me o'er and o'er     I look into its eyeballs,     And know myself once more.