He said: “Not these,
But up the level, jacinth seas
Something I could not still nor stay
Brought me into the light of day;
A galley, oared and Cyprian-green,
On waters traced with topaz keen,
By islands in the evening light,
Wine-coloured or with malachite,
A world from shards and chaos grown,
Unlike the wonder I had known;
Cities of opal, halls of jade,
Pinnacle, tower, balustrade,
Where, in the blue and crystal dawn,
One hand aloft and one withdrawn,
The people gathered to me thence,
Strangely, in all my eminence,
And whispered, ‘Shall we worship him?
Behold! our other gods are dim.
Hath he not beauty? Where shall we
Find ever his supremacy?
Comes he from Sardis, hath he way
From flower-fragrant Syria?
Those elder gods that men have made
Are grey and old and disarrayed;
But he that to this image prays,
And to those lips his own mouth lays,
And to those eyes o’erbrimmed with wine
Treads the year’s vintage for his shrine,
But up the level, jacinth seas
Something I could not still nor stay
Brought me into the light of day;
A galley, oared and Cyprian-green,
On waters traced with topaz keen,
By islands in the evening light,
Wine-coloured or with malachite,
A world from shards and chaos grown,
Unlike the wonder I had known;
Cities of opal, halls of jade,
Pinnacle, tower, balustrade,
Where, in the blue and crystal dawn,
One hand aloft and one withdrawn,
The people gathered to me thence,
Strangely, in all my eminence,
And whispered, ‘Shall we worship him?
Behold! our other gods are dim.
Hath he not beauty? Where shall we
Find ever his supremacy?
Comes he from Sardis, hath he way
From flower-fragrant Syria?
Those elder gods that men have made
Are grey and old and disarrayed;
But he that to this image prays,
And to those lips his own mouth lays,
And to those eyes o’erbrimmed with wine
Treads the year’s vintage for his shrine,
26
