Poetry Archives

So Lucius prayed, and sudden, from afar,
Floated the locks of Isis, shone the bright
Crown that is tressed with berry, snake, and star;
She came in deep blue raiment of the night,
Above her robes that now were snowy white,
Now golden as the moons of harvest are,
Now red, now flecked with many a cloudy bay,
Now stained with all the lustre of the light.

Then he who saw her knew her, and he knew
The awful symbols borne in either hand;
The golden urn that laves Demeter’s dew,
The handles wreathed with asps, the mystic wand;
The shaken seistron’s music, tinkling through
The temples of that old Osirian land.