Poems (Piatt)/Volume 1/The Altar at Athens
THE ALTAR AT ATHENS.["TO THE UNKNOWN GOD."]
Because my life was hollow with a pain As old as—death: because my eyes were dryAs the fierce tropics after months of rain: Because my restless voice said "Why?" and "Why?"
Wounded and worn, I knelt within the night, As blind as darkness—Praying? And to Whom?—When yon cold crescent cut my folded sight, And showed a phantom Altar in my room.
It was the Altar Paul at Athens saw. The Greek bowed there, but not the Greek alone;The ghosts of nations gathered, wan with awe, And laid their offerings on that shadowy stone.
The Egyptian worshipped there the crocodile, There they of Nineveh the bull with wings;The Persian there, with swart sun-lifted smile, Felt in his soul the writhing fire's bright stings.
There the weird Druid held his mistletoe; There for the scorched son of the sand, coiled bright,The torrid snake was hissing sharp and low; And there the Atlantic savage paid his rite.
"Allah!" the Moslem darkly muttered there; "Brahma!" the jewelled Indies of the EastSighed through their spices, with a languid prayer; "Christ?" faintly questioned many a paler priest.
And still the Athenian Altar's glimmering Doubt On all religions—evermore the same.What tears shall wash its sad inscription out? What Hand shall write thereon His other name?