The Magi

"The mountain was filled with the hosts of the Tuatha de Dannan."
--Old Celtic Poem


See where the auras from the olden fountain
    Starward aspire;
The sacred sign upon the holy mountain
    Shines in white fire:
Waving and flaming yonder o'er the snows
    The diamond light
Melts into silver or to sapphire glows
    Night beyond night;
And from the heaven of heavens descends on earth
    A dew divine.
Come, let us mingle in the starry mirth
    Around the shrine!
Enchantress, mighty mother, to our home
    In thee we press,
Thrilled by the fiery breath and wrapt in some
    Vast tenderness
The homeward birds uncertain o'er their nest
    Wheel in the dome,
Fraught with dim dreams of more enraptured rest,
    Wheel in the dome,
But gather ye to whose undarkened eyes
    The night is day:
Leap forth, Immortals, Birds of Paradise,
    In bright array
Robed like the shining tresses of the sun;
    And by his name
Call from his haunt divine the ancient one
    Our Father Flame.
Aye, from the wonder-light that wraps the star,
    Come now, come now;
Sun-breathing Dragon, ray thy lights afar,
    Thy children bow;
Hush with more awe the breath;    the bright-browed races
    Are nothing worth
By those dread gods from out whose awful faces
    The earth looks forth
Infinite pity, set in calm;    their vision cast
    Adown the years
Beholds how beauty burns away at last
    Their children's tears.
Now while our hearts the ancient quietness
    Floods with its tide,
The things of air and fire and height no less
    In it abide;
And from their wanderings over sea and shore
    They rise as one
Unto the vastness and with us adore
    The midnight sun;
And enter the innumerable All,
    And shine like gold,
And starlike gleam in the immortals' hall,
    The heavenly fold,
And drink the sun-breaths from the mother's lips
    Awhile--and then
Fail from the light and drop in dark eclipse
    To earth again,
Roaming along by heaven-hid promontory
    And valley dim.
Weaving a phantom image of the glory
    They knew in Him.
Out of the fulness flow the winds, their son
    Is heard no more,
Or hardly breathes a mystic sound along
    The dreamy shore:
Blindly they move unknowing as in trance,
    Their wandering
Is half with us, and half an inner dance
    Led by the King.

--January 15, 1896