THE RAINY HYADES 



" Where is the star Irabrifer ? Let us adore it." 



Years ago I remember coming upon this 

 mysterious phrase in a poem or poetic drama 

 by a French writer. The pagans, led by 

 a priest, then went into the woods ; and, in 

 a hollow made of a hidden place swept by 

 great boughs, worshipped a moist star. I 

 forget whether the scourge of drought ended 

 then, and if winds lifted the stagnant branches, 

 if rains poured through the leaves and mosses 

 and reached the well-springs. I recall only 

 the invocation, and some faint and broken 

 memory of the twilight-procession of bitter 

 hearts and wild voices, weary of vain lamenta- 

 tion and of unanswered prayers to sleeping or 

 silent gods. But often I wondered as to 

 Imbrifer, that dark lord with the sonorous 

 name. Was he a Gaulish divinity, or, as his 

 name signals, a strayed Latin ? And was he, 

 as our Manan of the West, a sea-deity, or a 



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