University of Virginia Library

Severe, he stood
Above the Roman, resting in a flood
Of radiance clear, and thus stern speech began:

“Ill counsell'd, and rash-spirited old man!
Learn to revere the all-wise Necessity,
That to the unceasing wheel of Time, whereby
Earth takes the shape by Heaven design'd, holds fast
Man's ductile clay; and, with the solid Past
Fusing the fluid Present's ardours, doth
The bright fantastic Future form from both.
Deem'st thou that, at thy summons, shall return
To earth the Powers whose parting footsteps spurn
Shrines where forever, since his course began,
The Names man worships are belied by man?
I will unfold the full mind of the gods,
From men obscured by Time's dull periods.
For man was on the earth ere we, that are
Not his first teachers, nor his last, were 'ware
Of his unblest condition: who, being born
Above the brutes, is but the more forlorn,
If missing consciousness of aught above
Himself, for him, in turn, to serve and love.
We, therefore, then, with gentle visitings,
To earth descended; and, from lonesome springs,
And hollow woods, lending to mountain winds,
And forest leaves, our language, with men's minds
Held commune: prompting man, by wishfulness
For the divineness of things fair, to press
Strong search for what they only find that seek.
Until, at length, from every river creek,
And winding vale, and wooded mountain, stole
Upon man's sense, in visible shape, the whole
Society of that immortal life
Which, mingling with man's own, made strong its strife,
Inspired its contemplation, beautified
Its being, and, ennobling earth, allied
Men, by gods visited, to gods, by men
Sought and perceived. Nor were we churlish then
To mortals. Wisdom, out of whisperous trees,
More sweet than whitest honey by wild bees
Suck'd from Midsummer's veins, to shepherd priests
We pour'd in oracles; and at men's feasts
Sat down familiar, or beside their hearths;
Teaching Old Age how best the dædal earth's
Wind-sown abundance, might, by skill increased,
Be harvested, when manful Youth the beast,
That's foe to man, had, help'd of us, subdued:
Youth, whose yet earnest eyes in ours first viewed
The images of what man's life might be
By imitating gods! Neither did we
Withhold the godlike gift of glorious Song.
Brutish we found man's life, the brutes among;
Beauteous we strove to make it . . . strove in vain!
Since man's low nature, failing to attain
The life of gods, but filch'd from gods their names
To deify what most degrades, most shames,
The life of man. Ill thank'd was all our toil!
To glorify earth's clay, oh, not to soil
Heaven's azure! came we from the kindly skies,
Kindling immortal fire in mortal eyes.
We gave men Beauty. But our gift, misused,
Hath wrong'd the givers. Have not men abused
Our very names, invoking them amiss
To deify ill deeds? Was it for this
Dian is chaste? Mars brave? and Venus fair?
And Jove just-minded? Wherefore, whatsoe'er
Henceforth men worship (whose base sense, indeed,
With its own baseness grown content, hath need
—If any price man's race may ransom yet
From bondage to its own bad life—to get,
By sharp compulsion of Heaven's highest will,
Keen knowledge of a nobler godhead, still
More potent, or more pitiful, than ours,
Whose images men's hands have hid with flowers
So thick, men's eyes no longer mark the frown
On each wrong'd forehead 'neath its shameful crown)
We, at the least, resign man's earth, and man,
To fates by us no more controll'd. Nor can
Man's worship mock our altars any more.
Not unto us, henceforth, your priests shall pour
The victim's blood. Not ours, henceforth, the names
Invoked on earth to sanction earth's worst shames.
Not simulating service in our cause
Shall Fraud forge Heaven's approval of the laws
Devised by wicked Force to sanction Wrong.
Not ours the worshippers whose zeal shall throng
Dungeons with dying, charnel dens with dead.
Nor yet to us shall praise be sung, prayer said,
Whenever men henceforth have injured men.
Why should we bide on earth, and be again
Dishonour'd in the deeds whereby mankind
Profess to honour Heaven?
“Yet shall they find,
Who yet may seek, us. Not where we have been,
By thrones, on altars, seen, and vainly seen,
Thro' purchased incense clouding shrines profaned!
But I, that from of old this power attain'd,—
Having foreseen the Future,—to make fast
What in the Future man desires—the Past,
Have wrought for man, by means of mighty Song,
A mystic world, which neither change can wrong,
Nor time can trouble. And, therein, man yet
May gaze on gods, and fashion from Regret
Fair forms resembling Hope. Wherefore, do thou
Cease to avoid the Inevitable. Know
That we, the gods, who minister no more
To man's ambition, fairer than of yore
Thy fathers found us, since henceforth set free
From all that mixt us with mortality,
Range undisturb'd, beyond all reach of change,
In regions where immortal memories range,
Unvext by mortal hopes: responsible
For mortal wrongs no longer.
“Deem not ill
For man whatever betters aught man deems,
Or hath deem'd, beautiful, tho' but in dreams.
Not by shrines shatter'd, not by statues spurn'd,
Temples deserted, altars overturn'd,
And incense stinted, are the gods disgraced;
But by base homage of a herd debased,
By Faith in service to a fraudful Force,
And wrongful deed by righteous name made worse.

“Nor yet, before the blaze of shrines not ours,
Fail we, or fall we. For the Heavenly Powers
Strive not against each other, as do those
Earth breeds of earth; nor can the gods be foes
O' the Godhead. Conquer'd are we not: since not
Contending. Deemest thou that Time can plot
Against Eternity? Fool! doth the seed
Grudge to his place the tree 'twas born to breed?
The bud the blossom which it bursts to bear,
When Summer's summons thro' the sunlit air
Shatters the long-shut sleep, whose dreams occult
Are realised in sleep's aroused result?
Time, that returns not, errs not. Be content,
Knowing thus much: nor toil against the event
Whereto Time tends.”