The Feast of Age

See where the light streams over Connla's fountainStarward aspire!The sacred sign upon the holy mountainShines in white fire:Wavering and flaming yonder o'er the snowsThe diamond lightMelts into silver or to sapphire glows,Night beyond night:And from the Heaven of Heaven descends on earthA dew divine.Come, let us mingle in the starry mirthAround the shrine.O Earth, Enchantress, Mother, to our homeIn thee we press,Thrilled by thy fiery breath and wrapt in someVast tenderness.The homeward birds, uncertain o'er their nestWheel in the dome,Fraught with dim dreams of more enraptured rest,Another home.But gather ye, to whose undarkened eyesNight is as day,Leap forth, immortals, Birds of Paradise,In bright array,Robed like the shining tresses of the sun,And by his nameCall from his haunt divine, the ancient oneOur Father Flame.Aye, from the wonder light, heart of our star,Come now, come now.Sun-breathing spirit, ray thy lights afar:Thy children bow,Hush with more awe the heart; the bright-browed racesAre nothing worth,By those dread gods from out whose awful facesThe earth looks forthInfinite pity set in calm, whose vision castAdown the yearsBeholds how beauty burns away at lastTheir children's tears.Now while our hearts the ancient quietnessFloods with its tide,The things of air and fire and height no lessIn it abide;And from their wanderings over sea and shoreThey rise as oneUnto the vastness, and with us adoreThe midnight sun,And enter the innumerable AllAnd shine like gold,And starlike gleam in the immortal's hall,The heavenly fold,And drink the sun-breaths from the Mother's lipsAwhile, and thenFail from the light and drop in dark eclipseTo earth again,Roaming along by heaven-hid promontoryAnd valley dim,Weaving a phantom image of the gloryThey knew in Him.Out of the fulness flow the winds, their songIs heard no more,Or hardly breathes a mystic sound alongThe dreamy shore,Blindly they move, unknowing as in trance;Their wanderingIs half with us, and half an inner dance,Led by the King.