I saw a staring virgin stand

Where holy Dionysus died,

And tear the heart out of his side,

And lay the heart upon her hand

And bear that beating heart away;

And then did all the Muses sing

Of Magnus Annus at the spring,

As though God’s death were but a play.

Another Troy must rise and set,

Another lineage feed the crow,

Another Argo’s painted prow

Drive to a flashier bauble yet.

The Roman Empire stood appalled:

It dropped the reins of peace and war

When that fierce virgin and her Star

Out of the fabulous darkness called.

In pity for man’s darkening thought

He walked that room and issued thence

In Galilean turbulence;

The Babylonian Starlight brought

A fabulous, formless darkness in;

Odour of blood when Christ was slain

Made Plato’s tolerance in vain

And vain the Doric discipline.