Came up the grave, which rent the gloomy sky.
With it arose a wave of crimson flame
Up straight towards a cloud that cover’d them;
Which shaped itself into a feather’d beam,
And wrote upon the cloud, thus: “Bassareus lives!”
To their wits’ end the gods and goddesses
Were driv’n: they scan the cloud and there behold
The marv’lous scrip in letters of bright gold:
Anon they gazed, until it vanishèd,
And gods conferr’d like men astonishèd.