The Magi

"The mountain was filled with the hosts of the Tuatha de Dannan."     --Old Celtic Poem               See where the auras from the olden fountain         Starward aspire;     The sacred sign upon the holy mountain         Shines in white fire:     Waving and flaming yonder o'er the snows         The diamond light     Melts into silver or to sapphire glows         Night beyond night;     And from the heaven of heavens descends on earth         A dew divine.     Come, let us mingle in the starry mirth         Around the shrine!     Enchantress, mighty mother, to our home         In thee we press,     Thrilled by the fiery breath and wrapt in some         Vast tenderness     The homeward birds uncertain o'er their nest         Wheel in the dome,     Fraught with dim dreams of more enraptured rest,         Wheel in the dome,     But gather ye to whose undarkened eyes         The night is day:     Leap forth, Immortals, Birds of Paradise,         In bright array     Robed like the shining tresses of the sun;         And by his name     Call from his haunt divine the ancient one         Our Father Flame.     Aye, from the wonder-light that wraps the star,         Come now, come now;     Sun-breathing Dragon, ray thy lights afar,         Thy children bow;     Hush with more awe the breath;    the bright-browed races         Are nothing worth     By those dread gods from out whose awful faces         The earth looks forth     Infinite pity, set in calm;    their vision cast         Adown the years     Beholds how beauty burns away at last         Their children's tears.     Now while our hearts the ancient quietness         Floods with its tide,     The things of air and fire and height no less         In it abide;     And from their wanderings over sea and shore         They rise as one     Unto the vastness and with us adore         The midnight sun;     And enter the innumerable All,         And shine like gold,     And starlike gleam in the immortals' hall,         The heavenly fold,     And drink the sun-breaths from the mother's lips         Awhile--and then     Fail from the light and drop in dark eclipse         To earth again,     Roaming along by heaven-hid promontory         And valley dim.     Weaving a phantom image of the glory         They knew in Him.     Out of the fulness flow the winds, their son         Is heard no more,     Or hardly breathes a mystic sound along         The dreamy shore:     Blindly they move unknowing as in trance,         Their wandering     Is half with us, and half an inner dance         Led by the King. --January 15, 1896