The Star-Treader and Other Poems

The Huntress rides no more
Across the upturned faces of the stars:
'Tis but the dead shell of a frozen world,
Glittering with desolation. Earth's old gods—
The gods that haunt like dreams each planet's youth—
Are fled from years incredulous, and tired
With penetrating of successive masks,
That give but emptiness they served to hide.
Remains not faith enough to bring them back—
Pan to his wood, Diana to her moon,
And all the visions that made populous
An eager world where Time grows weary now.
Yet Youth, that lives, might for a little claim
The pantheon of dream, on such a night,
When 'neath the growing marvel of the moon
The films of time wear perilously thin,
And thought looks backward to the simpler years,
Till all the vision seems but just beyond.
If one have faith, it may be that he shall
Behold the gods—once only, and no more,
Because of Time's inhospitality,
For which they may not stay.

THE POET

Within the marvel of the light, what flower
Of active wonder from quiescence springs!
Is it a throng of luminous white clouds,
Phantoms of some old storm's death-driven Titans,
That float beneath the moon, and speak with voices
Like the last echoes of a thunder spent?
'Tis the forsaken gods, that win a foothold
About the magic circle which the moon
Draws like some old enchantress round the glade.

THE PHILOSOPHER

I see them not: the vision is addressed
Only to thine acute and eager youth.

JOVE

All heaven and earth were once my throne;
Now I have but the wind alone
For shifting judgment-seat.
The pillared world supported me:
Yet man's old incredulity
Left nothing for my feet.

PAN

Man hath forgotten me:
Yet seems it that my memory
Saddens the wistful voices of the wood;
Within each erst-frequented spot
Echo forgets my music not,
Nor Earth my tread where trampling years have stood.

ARTEMIS

Time hath grown cold
Toward beauty loved of old.
The gods must quake
When dreams and hopes forsake
The heart of man,
And disillusion's ban
More chill than stone,
Rears till the former throne
Of loveliness
Is dark and tenantless.
Now must I weep—
Homeless within the deep
Where once of old
Mine orbèd chariot rolled,—
And mourn in vain
Man's immemorial pain
Uncomforted
Of light and beauty fled.

APOLLO

Time wearied of my song—
A satiate and capricious king
Who for his pleasure bade me sing,
First of his minstrel throng.
Till, cloyed with melody,
His ear grew faint to voice and lyre;
Forgotten then of Time's desire,
His thought was void of me.

APHRODITE