Nevermore Shall the shepherds of Arcady follow Pan's moods as he lolls by the shore Of the mere, or lies hid in the hollow; Nevermore Shall they start at the sound of his reed fashioned flute; Fallen mute Are the strings of Apollo, His lyre and his lute; And the lips of the Memnons are mute Evermore; And the gods of the North, — are they dead or forgetful, Our Odin and Baldur and Thor? Are they drunk, or grown weary of worship and fretful, Our Odin and Baldur and Thor? And into what night have the Orient deities strayed? You swart gods of the Nile, in dusk splendors arrayed, Brooding Isis and sombre Osiris, You were gone ere the fragile papyrus That bragged you eternal decayed. The avatars But illumine their limited evens And vanish like plunging stars; They are fixed in the whirling heavens No firmer than falling stars; Brief lords of the changing soul, they pass Like a breath from the face of a glass, Or a blossom of summer blown shalloplike over The clover And tossed tides of grass. Sink to silence the psalms and the pæans, The shibboleths shift, and the faiths, And the temples that challenged the æons Are tenanted only by wraiths; Swoon to silence the cymbals and psalters, The worship grow senseless and strange, And the mockers ask, "Where be thy altars?" Crying, "Nothing is changeless — but Change!" Yea, nothing seems changeless, but Change. And yet, through the creed wrecking years, One story forever appears: The tale of a City Supernal — The whisper of Something eternal — A passion, a hope and a vision That people the silence with Powers; A fable of meadows Elysian Where Time enters not with his Hours; — Manifold are the tale's variations, Race and clime ever tinting the dreams, Yet its essence, through endless mutations, Immutable gleams. Deathless, though godheads be dying, Surviving the creeds that expire, Illogical, reason defying, Lives that passionate, primal desire; Insistent, persistent, forever Man cries to the silences, "Never Shall Death reign the lord of the soul, Shall the dust be the ultimate goal — I will storm the black bastions of Night! I will tread where my vision has trod, I will set in the darkness a light, In the vastness, a god!" As the skull of the man grows broader, so do his creeds; And his gods they are shaped in his image, and mirror his needs; And he clothes them with thunders and beauty, He clothes them with music and fire. Seeing not, as he bows by their altars, That he worships his own desire; And mixed with his trust there is terror, And mixed with his madness is ruth, And every man grovels in error, Yet every man glimpses a truth. For all of the creeds are false, and all of the creeds are true; And low at the shrines where my brothers bow, there will I bow too; For no form of a god, and no fashion Man has made in his desperate passion But is worthy some worship of mine; Not too hot with a gross belief, Nor yet too cold with pride, I will bow me down where my brothers bow, Humble, but open eyed. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...COLORS by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET DRIVING INTO LARAMIE by JAMES GALVIN YOU KNOW WHAT PEOPLE SAY by JAMES GALVIN SOMEBODY LOVED ME by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON TRIFLE by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON THE CRESCENT MOON by AMY LOWELL EIGHTEEN-DOLLAR TAXI TRIP TO TIZAPAN AND BACK TO CHAPALA by CLARENCE MAJOR SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: PENNIWIT, THE ARTIST by EDGAR LEE MASTERS |