Classic Poem

Here for a thousand years processional
Winding around the Eleusinian bay,
The world with drooping eyes has made her way
By stair and portal to the sombre Hall.
As then the litanies antiphonal
Obscurely through the pillars sang away,
It dawned, and in the shaft of sudden day
Demeter smiling gave her bread to all.
They drew as waves out of a twilight main,
Long genuflecting multitudes, to feed
With God upon the sacramental grain.
And lo, the temple veil was rent in twain;
But thro' the rift their choirs in silver train
Still passing out rehearsed the human creed.