NP corybantes (a dance in three parts)

[Aqua Lung]

                                       DIONYSUS ENCRADLED 

Great night, mother-night among the nights 
of the ages, cradle of the Titans' offspring, 
you who pour your snow swift and thick this evening 
between me and the outside world, closing me 
alone in my unviolated sentry box 
(upright coffin where, my limbs frozen, I keep 
unsleeping watch on the frontiers of time): 

Mother-night, in Your silence, as I feel 
my heart waning -- for everything sleeps: the earth beneath 
my feet, the deep sky above me, and only 
the Serpent of the Abyss seems to be awake, 
and not even my breath's vapor rises 
from my lips, which death waits ready to close -- 
suddenly I think I hear, low, quavering, 
the cry of a baby, and I ask myself: 
"Is God, eternal God, being born again 
tonight as a young child?" 
                            But, Mother-night, 
in vain I strain my ears to catch, behind 
this cry, perhaps the sound of dogs moving 
in the fold at Bethlehem, and in vain 
I strain my eyes to see the angelic host or, 
lower down, shepherds' fires piercing the darkness. 

But as clouds cover the clouds and everything 
is wrapped silently in the snow's winding sheet, 
I hear -- long, doleful, blood-curdling -- the howl of
wolves 
invade you, hear swift packs of wolves go by, 
a whole long army climbing through the snow; 
yet as once more your silence suddenly fills you, 
again I put the same question to myself. 

And in answer, as if a whirlwind's savage blast 
shatters the wall of silence that enfolds me, 
legions of the dead, their winding sheets the same 
snow that covers up their tracks, throng all around me, 
throng like hordes of prisoners who have smashed 
their prison walls, like madmen who have found 
suddenly that their asylum door has been burst 
wide open by the storm and, pouring out 
into the night, have scattered helter-skelter; 
and all those dead, grieving, seem to say: 
"Truly the eternal God is being born 
again tonight as a young child . . . But tell us: 
where are the sentinels to keep watch on the sacred 
frontiers, to save the child from the wolves?" 

This, Mother-night, is the harsh voice I seem to hear 
inside me; and as suddenly the whole 
world-creating sistrum vibrates in my heart, 
I plunge, Night, cradle of the Titans' offspring, 
inspired by Your hidden pulse, each beat an age, 
into the darkness to summon the companions; 
into the darkness I plunge, over snow and tombs, 
and with these words I call them at the crossroads: 

"My sweet child, my Dionysus and my Christ: 
though You have come into the world today, a young Titan, 
You have no mother's arms to keep You warm. 
For You are the son of the night around us, 
of this night, and son of our unsleeping hearts 
which, spark of life in the frozen chaos, 
fight now with death itself, with our own death 
and that of the whole world. And we know, 
young Titan, that if You fail tonight to fasten 
onto our hearts, to drink their blood drop by drop, 
tomorrow You too will be among the dead. 
But we hold it better to stay buried 
in the upright coffins that freeze our limbs 
than for Your pulse to stop in the darkness, 
along with all the rest that swell the herd 
of indescribable violence, and for savage wolves 
from far off to catch the scent of Your cradle. 

But as Your cradle is the shield of shields, 
so we, Corybantes, begin to circle 
around it, to dance our last dance, beating our swords 
on our own shields to drive the wolves from You. 
The whole night through we'll dance around You, 
and however long the night, we'll dance until 
the ghouls of the dark have fled, and Your voice -- 
God's voice that rises out of sleep, voice 
of the 'great intoxication' -- suddenly calls 
the dead into the sun's warmth, while above Your cradle 
bends the shadow of Your single mighty Vine, 
sweet child, our Dionysus and our Christ."