19 THE GOD-FATHER

Always was fear the god’s ambassador, Since first in traverse of high-tumbling seas Man quailed and out of thunderings made Thor; Or mid the desert’s dumb infinities He shuddered, dreaming of Tanit and the Sphinx; Or noting life’s large cruelty, surmised Plethoric Zeus, with twinkling eyes that roam Alcmena-ward.—Still as man fears, man thinks; And presently each dread is canonized, And duly terror is wheedled and exorcised, And given his priest, and shrine, and hecatomb. Fearing, we loathe, and to the thing abhorred Bow down; and terror and fancy beget a god A while evaded, and a while adored, And afterward bemocked. As with a rod Time smote the lords of Nineveh and Khem, And raised the dreams which Hellas deemed divine; As presently the grosser gods of Rome Turned ghost, and Saturn’s pilfered diadem Rolled at Christ’s bleeding feet.—What praise was thine That art most feared of all? what gilded shrine, Cajoling priest, and steaming hecatomb? Scant need to wheedle Death! men said. Our life, With all the pain and passion of the whole, With all the toil, the sorrow and the strife, Is but a passing onward to the goal Where Death awaits us. Mid his votaries Our birth-cry ranked us; nor may any art Avail to save us, while the years consume As ashes smoulder when their fervor dies Insensibly; and he that lies apart In darkness hears the pulsing of Death’s heart, And knows that Death waits near him in the gloom. Yea, of all gods thou only lovest not gifts! Others we placate; or in smiting we Evade them. When thou smitest with what shifts May we evade thee? or how placate thee? Thou wilt not hearken to any prayer of ours; Thou biddest emperors and popes as well As witless clowns, Be still and bide thy fate!— Whose altar we have wreathed with fitting flowers— With purple lupine, crumpled poppy-bell, Ambiguous mandrake, and pale asphodel,— Since praise thee or blame thee, thou art obdurate. And nor to wheedle thee, nor to demand Favor of thee or any pity of thee, We come. Beneath a lifted sword we stand And praise thee, knowing, whatever gods may be, Thy altar is not shaken: though the creeds And outworn faiths of dreaming seer and priest Endure as sinister shadows, or endure As marsh-fires glittering round a path that leads Nowhither; and the night be, and the east Sleep, and the sun not waken;—yet at least, Though all things else be doubtful, death is sure. We praise thee, knowing how vainly fancy spans With timorous dreams the grave’s unplumbed abyss. Vainly we famed the calm Olympians, And vainly Ammon-Ra, and Artemis, And Neith, and Krishna. Comfort we have had Of kindlier lords whose fabled potency With shadows decked the darkness lest the dread Of darkness absolute should drive us mad,— But Time discrowns them. Time endures. But he Discrowns thee never, and endures by thee Endured, against that time when Time be dead.