Part 3 — THE GREAT MERGER (Exodus, Chapter XX.)

Philo, the worst has come, All we foresaw and feared: Delphos will soon be dumb, Eleusis felled and cleared. Not only Marduk and Bel Shamash, Nana, and Sin Are doomed to be swallowed. Rebel? It is too late to begin. They have worked for this merger for years; They have bullied, lied and coerced. They have played with curses and tears. And now at last is the worst: For Zeus goes into the bowl Of Cyclops, thoroughly blended. The brew is Jehovah, a Soul Envious, sour, commended And forced to our lips. His son And another, the Holy Ghost, Are mixed with him, there is none Not stirred in the mixture and lost Of the gods we loved. They say There is only one god, not many. Well, who knows, we of clay, If there be a thousand, or any? They say there is one—all right! They take over all the rest. And so there is one, we can fight, Argue, pray and protest; Set up a booth to Apollo, Athene; bawl and persuade. The crowds no longer follow— Jehovah has got the trade. For the Jews have used the scheme Of commerce for making a god: A harbor where no trireme But their own can dock or load. Now who will come to dissolve This theo-monopoly? And the power they took devolve On a mightier deity? It will come. But as for Zeus, Osiris, Ptah, Zoroaster, They are stewed in the dominant juice Of Jehovah, lord and master. We accept the fate. We laugh. The earth, the sea and the sky Are at last the cenotaph Of gods, who always die.