Orpheus

I call as my witness the God of the blackened river
poured from six urns scorched by the fallen sun,
and the King of gods, who rides in the long car
given him by his mother’s mother, Night, drawn
by oxen at noon, and later, by the horses of darkness.
I call upon you all: you giants of an earlier age;
and men of this age, which is to be the last; Earth God,
you who devour the dead; Sky God, you who breathed
breath into the forms of clay: I call you Powers
as my witness: she I worship is a woman, she
above all things is sacred. The ocean, monster
with blue hair, has granted my petition. I now
am the soul of the singing world, and I sing
love—immense, the darkness full of clouds,
the big drops bursting onto the shaken leaves,
the north wind rousing the woods, the west wind
rousing the wheat, and my mind stirred more
deeply than all these by love. For I shall love
this woman always beyond limit. If I fail:
let the sky drop curses on my head; and curse
also the flower, and the ripe ear of the wheat;
let no one ever read the magic words on the wall.