Aurora Magazine 2017

D S Thomas Of Maenads and Madness

You are new among our wearied forms, maddened and then exhausted by our rites. Untouched by drunken, raging storms that drench the days and plague the nights. No invocation has passed your virgin lips, no bitter curse you’ve thought to speak. For you the shadow gently slips from shuttered eyes and vision weak. And look, your kylix is empty, waiting amid ever overflowing drink. Your unstained lips forever hating that which brings us to the brink. O, you’ll hate the trances frenzied - the odium of midnights wild. You’ll come to loathe a body envied and find your own to be reviled. But now you come with boastful wanting, silent lips, and empty cup. The dimly tacit voice not taunting -

to tell you we could eat you up. So take the kylix, take the thyrsus

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