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Hymn To Proserpine




The poem opens with the words ''Vicisti, Galilæe'', of the Emperor Julian . He had tried to reverse the official endorsement of Christianity by the Roman Empire . The poem is cast in the form of a Lament by a person professing the Paganism of Classical Antiquity and lamenting its passing, and expresses regret at the rise of Christianity :

Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath;

We have drunken of things Lethe an, and fed on the fullness of death.


The poem is addressed to the Goddess Proserpina , the Roman equivalent of Persephone .


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