The Equinox (Volume I, Number IV)

THE EQUINOX How shall I have speech of Thee, who know not Thy speak- ing? How shall I behold Thee, who art hidden in the darkness? Lo! I bend mine eyes before Thee, and no sign dost Thou vouchsafe me; I whisper love-words before Thee, and I know not if Thou hear me, Thou who art the darling of the Night and of the Silence; Yellow art Thou as the sunlight through the corn-fields, Bright as the sun-dawn on the snow-clad mountains, Slow as the voice of the great green gliding River. Calmly in Thy silence am I come to rest me, Now from the world the light hath slowly faded ; I have left the groves of Pan that I might gaze upon Thee, Gaze upon the Virgin that before Time was begotten, Mother of Chronos, and the old gods before him, Child of the womb of the Silence, whose father Is the unknown breath of the most secret Goddess, Whose name whoso hath heard is smitten to madness. “ Now do I come before Thee in Thy temple, With offerings from the oak-woods and the breath of the water That girds the earth with a girdle of green starlight; And all the austerity of the brooding summer, And all the wonder of the starlit spaces That stare down awesomely upon the lonely marshes, And the bogs with sucking lips, and the pools that charm the wanderer Till he forgets the world, and rushes to sleep upon them.” 22