The Gods Are Dead
THE gods are dead? Perhaps they are! Who knows?Living at least in Lemprière undeleted,The wise, the fair, the awful, the jocose,Are one and all, I like to think, retreatedIn some still land of lilacs and the rose.
Once higeh they sat, and high o’er earthly showsWith sacrificial dance and song were greeted.Once … long ago. But now, the story goes,The gods are dead.
It must be true. The world, a world of prose,Full-crammed with facts, in science swathed and sheeted,Nods in a stertorous after-dinner doze!Plangent and sad, in every wind that blowsWho will may hear the sorry words repeated:—‘The Gods are Dead!’
To F. W.
LET us be drunk, and for a while forget,Forget, and, ceasing even from regret,Live without reason and despite of rhyme,As in a dream preposterous and sublime,Where place and hour and means for once are met.
Where is the use of effort? Love and debtAnd disappointment have us in a net.Let us break out, and taste the morning prime …Let us be drunk.
In vain our little hour we strut and fret,And mouth our wretched parts as for a bet:We cannot please the tragicaster Time.To gain the crystal sphere, the silver dime,Where Sympathy sits dimpling on us yet,Let us be drunk!