The Gods of Old: An Ode

Not realmless sit the ancient gods
Upon their misty thrones.
In that old glorious Grecian heaven
Of regal zones
A languor on their awful forms may lie,
And a deep grief on their large white brows,
King-dwellers of the sky!
But still they show the might of god,
In rustless panoply.
They cannot fade, though other creeds
Came burden'd with their curse,
And ose's apotheosis was
A darken'd universe:
No tempest heralded the orient light;
No fiery portent walk'd the solemn night;
No conqueror's blood-red banner was unfurl'd;
No vol can shook its warning torch on high;
No earthquake tore the pulses of the world;
No pale suns wander'd through the swarthy sky;
Only the silent Spheres
Amid the darkness shed some joyous tears;
And then, as rainbows come, it came
With morning's lambent flame.
The Stars look'd from their palaces, whose spires
And windows caught afar the prophet-glow.
And bade their choirs sing to the sweetest lyres,
"Peace and good will unto the orb below!"
The monarchs shudder'd and turn'd sick at heart;
And from their bright hands fell
Gemm'd sceptres with a thunderous sound
Before the miracle:
Ah! sick at soul — but they, the bards,
Song's calm immortals in the eclipse,
Throng'd up and held the nectar-cup
To their pale lips;
And each, with an eager, fond look, stirr'd
Certain melodious strings,
While the startled tempest-bearing bird,
Poised tremblingly his wings:
Then loftier still their harps resounded,
And louder yet their voices roll'd
Between the arches, and rebounded
Dreamily from the roof of gold:
"Ye cannot leave your throned spheres,
Though faith is o'er,
And a mightier One than Jove appears
On Earth's expectant shore!"
Slowly the daring words went trampling through the halls —
"Not in the earth, nor hell, nor sky,
The ideal, O ye gods! can ever die,
But to the soul of man immortal calls.
"Still, Jove, sublime, shall wrap
His awful forehead in Olympian shrouds,
Or take along the heavens' dark wilderness
His thunder-chase behind the hunted clouds:
And mortal eyes upturned shall behold
Apollo's rustling robe of gold
Sweep through the corridors of the ancient sky
That kindling speaks its Deity:
And he the ruler of the sunless land
Of restless ghosts shall fitfully illume
With smouldering fires that stir in cavern'd eyes
Hell's house of shuddering gloom:
Still the ethereal huntress, as of old,
Shall roam amid the sacred Latmos mountains,
And lave her virgin limbs in waters cold
That, earth holds up for her in marble fountains:
And in his august dreams along the Italian streams,
The poor old throneless god, with angry frown,
Will feebly grasp the air for his lost crown —
Then murmur sadly low of his great overthrow.
And wrapp'd in sounding mail shall he appear,
War's giant charioteer! —
And where the conflict reels,
Urge through the swaying lines his crashing wheels;
Or pausS to list amid the horrent shades,
The deep, hoarse cry of battle's thirsty blades,
Led by the hungry spear —
Till at the weary combat's close,
They gave their passionate thanks,
Amid the panting ranks of conquer'd foes;
Then, drunken with their king's red wine,
Go swooning to repose around his purple shrine.
"And he the trident-wielder still shall see
The adoring billows kneel around his feet,
While, at his call, the winds in ministry
Before their altar of the tempest meet:
()r — leaning gently o'er the Paphian isles,
Cheer'd by the music of some Triton's horn —
Lift up the shadowy curtains of the night
To their hid window-tops above,
And bathe thy drowsy eyelids with the light,
Voluptuous queen of love!
And thou, ah, thou,
Born of the white sea-foam
That dreams a-troubled still around thy home —
Awaking from thy slumbers, thou shalt press
Thy passionate lips on his resplendent brow
In some sweet, lone recess,
Where waters murmur and the dim leaves bow:
And young Endtmios
At midnight's pallid noon
Shall still be charm'd from his dewy sleep
By the foolish, lovesick Moon,
Who thrills to find him in some lovely vale
Before her silver lamp may fail:
And Pan shall play his pleasant reed
Down in the hush'd arcades,
And fauns shall prank the sward amid
Thessalia's sunny shades.
"Nor absent she whose eyes of azure throw
Truth's sunburst on the world below:
Still shall she calmly watch the choral years
Circling fast the beamy spheres
That tremble as she marches through their plains,
While momently rolls out a sullen sound
From Error's hoary mountains tumbling round —
Heard by the Titan, who from his high rock,
Fill'd with immortal pains
That his immortal spirit still can mock,
Exultant sees — despite the oppressor's ire,
The frost, the heat, the vulture, and the storm —
Earth's ancient vales rejoicing in his fire,
The homes, the loves of men — those beings wrought
To many a beauteous formf
In the grand quiet of his own great thought:
And over all, bright, beautiful, serene,
And changeless in thy prime,
Thou, Psyche, glory-cinctured shalt be seen,
Whispering forever that one word sublime,
Down through the peopled gallery of Time —
'Eternity!' — in whose dread cycles stand
Men and their deities, alike on common land."
Like far-off st-irs that glimmer in a cloud,
Deathless, O gods! shall ye illume the past;
To ye the poet-voice will cry aloud,
Faithful among the faithless to the last —
"Ye must not die!"
Long as the dim robes of the ages trail
O'er Delphi's steep or Tempe's flowery vale —
Ye shall not die!
Though time and storm your calm old temples rend,
And, rightly, men to our "One only" bend —
Ye were the things in which the ancient mind
Its darkling sense of Deity enshrined.
To Sinai still Olympus reverent calls,
And Ida leans to hear Mount Zion's voice:
Gods of the past! your shapes are in our halls;
Upon our clime your mighty presence falls,
And Christian hearts with Grecian souls rejoice.