I.nsit N.ATURAE R.eEcrna I. sis
(Obtained in invocation, June 9-10, 1910 O.S.)
ALL the hot summer I lay in the darkness,
Calling on the winds to pass by me and slay me,
Slay me with light in the heat of the summer;
But the winds had no answer for one who was fallen
Asleep by the wayside, with no lyre to charm them,
No voice of the lyre, and no song to charm them.
Late as I lay there asleep by the wayside,
I heard a voice call to me, low in the silence,
There in the darkness the summer called to me:
“Thou who art hidden in the green silence,
Let a time of quietness come now upon thee.
Lay thine head on the earth and slumber on her bosom:
Time and the gods shall pass darkling before thee.”
There in the silence I lay, and I heeded
The slow voice that called me, the grave hand that beckoned,
That beckoned me on through the hall of the silence.
There in the silence there was a green goddess,
Folden her wings, and her hands dumbly folden,
Lying in her lap, as though asleep in the darkness.
Then did I hail her: ‘‘O mother, my mother,
Syren of the silence, dumb voice of the darkness,
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