Little Poems in Prose

XXXII THE THYRSUS: DEDICATED TO FRANZ LISZT WHAT is the Thyrsus? In the moral and po- etic sense it is a sacerdotal emblem borne in the hands of priests or priestesses when they celebrate the Divinity whose interpreters and servants they are. But physically it is nothing but a stick, a mere stick, hop-pole or vine- prop; or, hard, and straight. Around this stick, in capricious meanderings, sport and frolic tendrils and blossoms, those sinuous and eva- sive, these hanging like bells or inverted cups, and an astounding glory shoots forth from this complexity of line and tender or brilliant col- our. Might not one say that the curved line and the spiral are paying court to the straight line. and dance it in dumb worship? Might not one say that all these delicate corollae, all these calyxes, these eruptions of odour and colour, execute a mysterious fandango around the hieratic staff; and nevertheless, who is the im- prudent mortal who will dare to decide if the