To "Garryowen" upon an organ ground Two girls are jiggling. Riotously they trip, With eyes aflame, quick bosoms, hand on hip, As in the tumult of a witches' round. Youngsters and youngsters round them prance and bound. Two solemn babes twirl ponderously, and skip. The artist's teeth gleam from his bearded lip. High from the kennel howls a tortured hound. The music reels and hurtles, and the night Is full of stinks and cries; a naphtha-light Flares from a barrow; battered and obtused With vices, wrinkles, life and work and rags, Each with her inch of clay, two loitering hags Look on dispassionate -- critical -- something 'mused The gods are dead? Perhaps they are! Who knows The wise, the fair, the awful, the jocose, Are one and all, I like to think, retreated In some still land of lilacs and the rose. Once high they sat, and high o'er earthly shows With 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 blows Who will may hear the sorry words repeated: -- 'The Gods are Dead!' | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BACCALAUREATE by ARCHIBALD MACLEISH CLASS SONG (WHICH WILL BE SUNG ON THE 22ND OF FEBRUARY) by GEORGE SANTAYANA YOUR MISSION by ELLEN M. HUNTINGTON GATES THE WEATHER-COCK POINTS SOUTH by AMY LOWELL THE MULBERRY GARDEN: CHILD AND MAIDEN by CHARLES SEDLEY |