Ii

The gods of Greece are mine once more! The old philosophies again! For I have drunk the hellebore Of dreams, and dreams have made me sane-- The wine of dreams! that doth unfold My other self,--’mid shadowy shrines Of myths which marble held of old, Part of the Age of Bronze or Gold,-- That lives, a pagan, ’mid the pines.

Dead myths, to whom such dreams belong! O beautiful philosophies Of Nature! crystallized in song And marble, peopling lost seas, Lost forests and the star-lost vast, Grant me the childlike faith that clung.-- Through loveliness that could not last,-- To Heaven in the pagan past, Calling for God with infant tongue!