Poem by Edmund William Gosse

The Mænad's Grave

The girl who once, on Lydian heights,
     Around the sacred grove of pines,
Would dance through whole tempestuous nights
     Where no moon shines,
Whose pipe of lotos featly blown
Gave airs as shrill as Cotys' own,

Who, crowned with buds of ivy dark,
     Three times drained deep with amorous lips,
The wine-fed bowl of willow bark,
     With silver tips,
Nor sank, nor ceased, but shouted still
Like some wild wind from hill to hill,

She lies at last where poplars wave
     Their sad gray foliage all day long;
The river murmurs near her grave
     A soothing song:
Farewell, it saith! Her days have done
With shouting at the set of sun.

1. At the Play
2. With a Copy of Herrick
3. The Bath
4. Greece and England
5. Alere Flammam

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