The Collected Works of William Morris :: :: University of Virginia Library

“When he is slain, then shall ye bear his bed
Into this shrine, and burn what burned may be
In little space; but into the deep sea
Thou, Clearer of the Shore, with thy two men
Shalt bear him forth.—Fellows, what say we then,
When on the morn the city wakes to find
Its saviour gone? This:—‘Men are fools and blind
And the Gods all-wise; this man born on earth
By some strange chance, yet was of too great worth

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To live, and go as common men may go;
Therefore the Gods, who set him work to do,
When that was done, had no more will to see
His head grow white; or with man's frailty
Burn out his heart; they might not hear him curse
His latter days, as unto worse and worse
He fell at last; therefore they took him hence
To make him sharer in omnipotence,
And crown him with their immortality,
Nor may ye hope his body more to see.
These ashes of the web wherein last lay
His godlike limbs that took your fear away,
(Limbs now a very God's), this fire-stained gold
That, unharmed, very God might nowise hold,
Are left for certain signs—so shall ye rear
A temple to him nigh the gate; and bear
Gifts of good things unto the one who wrought
Deliverance for you, when ye e'en were brought
Unto the very gate of death and hell.’

“Fellows, spread vaguely this tale that I tell!
But thou, O Chremes, when the work is done
Get straight unto the forest all alone,
And with some slaughtered beast come back again
Ere noon, as though of hearers thou wert fain;
Folk knew thee for a wanderer through the wood,
So make thy tale up as thou deemest good
Of voices heard by thee at dead of night;
So shall our words live and all things be right.

“Come, then; the night is changing; good it were
That dawn's first glimmer did not find us here!”