16

On the Immortal Gods’ Voices

Their silence repeals the silence of the bright

stars told by Arnold on shale by the unpanicked sea

when his mute god, the last, ebbed with the tide.

Now madmen shriek, forced from unconscious earth,

in that first spasm after resisted birth.

Not the immortal gods it was who died

but our manacling cord to Mystery.

Silence is strange at first, and the steady light.