XVII - In a red bacchic surge of thoughts that beat

In a red bacchic surge of thoughts that beat

On the mad temples like an ire's amaze,

In a fury that hurts the eyes, and yet

Doth make all things clear with a blur around,

The whole group's soul like a glad drunkard sways

And bounds up from the ground!

Ay, though all these be common people heaping

To church, from church, the bridal keeping,

Yet all the satyrs and big pagan haunches

That in taut flesh delight and teats and paunches,

And whose course, trailing through the foliage, nears

The crouched nymph that half fears,

In invisible rush, behind, before

This decent group move, and with hot thoughts store

The passive souls round which their mesh they wind,

The while their rout, loud stumbling as if blind,

Makes the hilled earth wake echoing from her sleep

To the lust in their leap.