The Eclipse of Faith

The shapes that frowned before the eyes
Of the early world have fled,
And all the life of earth and skies,
Of streams and seas, is dead.

Forgotten is the Titan's fame,
The dread Chimaera now
Is but a mild innocuous flame
Upon a mountain's brow,
Around whose warmth its strawberry red
The arbutus hangs and goatherds tread.

And now has Typho spent his rage,
The Sirens now no more
Entice the song-struck mariner
To give his voyage o'er.
The sailor past Messina hies,
And scorns the den where Scylla lies.

Leda's twin sons no more are seen
In battle's hottest press,
Nor shine the wind-tost waves between
To seamen in distress.

The muse is but the poet's soul,
That looked towards Helicon,
And for its living thought divine
Raised up a mountain throne.

But ah ! is nought save fable slain
In this new realm of thought ?
Or has the shaft Primeval Truth
And Truth's great Author sought ?

Yes, wisdom now is built on sense ;
We measure and we weigh,
We break and join, make rare and dense,
And reason God away.

The wise have probed this wondrous world,
And searched the stars, and find
All curious facts and laws revealed,
But not Almighty mind.

From thinking dust we mould the spheres,
And shape earth's wondrous frame :
If God had slept a million years,
All things would be the same.