Mundus Patet

On those three terrible days of the Roman year
the barriers between world and underworld
were taken up:
the bounds agreed upon by gods and men
between the friendly known and the awful unknown
unwillingly by the willing priests removed
obedient to the compulsive ritual.

mundus patet . . .

And all stood still, nor dared perform the acts
of public business, while the door of hell
stood open, open to the dark beneath;
a charnel-smelling hole.
Now the most ancient, darkest gods could touch
with their chill fingers the sunlit upper world—
Tellus and Kronos, Chaos and Old Night—
but for three days alone.

And now, on other than the seven hills,
beyond the Caesars and the Palatine,
the sorcerers' terrified apprentices
have opened up the pit they cannot close
and the dread days are lifetimes:
we cannot move while watching, impotent,
the darkness flood our world—the sunlight goes,
mundus patet . . . and none can shut the door.

c. 1950

NOTES

• mundus: euphemistically for the Lower World. The opening to this was in Rome in the Comitum, covered with a stone, opened three times a year on days sacred to underworld gods; fruits thrown in as offerings. Lewis & Short Latin Dictionary (1958)
• [this perhaps refers to the atomic bomb? Eds]