Poems (Henley)/The gods are dead
The gods are dead? Perhaps they are! Who knows?Living at least in Lempriére 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 high 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!'