Poems (Piatt)/Volume 1/The Altar at Athens

by Sarah Piatt

THE ALTAR AT ATHENS. ["TO THE UNKNOWN GOD."]

Because my life was hollow with a pain
 As old as—death: because my eyes were dry
As 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 East
Sighed 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?