Poem December 14, 1912 Issue

[Written for the Sentinel.]

ON A STATUE OF HEBE IN A GARDEN

LUCILE RUTLAND

In that day a man shall cast his idols... to the moles and to the bats.—ISAIAH.

BEHOLD, this mythologue in stone,
This symbol of a faith long dead,
Stands here in state unhallowed,
With mold and mosses overgrown.

And though iconoclastic years
Touch not th'eternal grace of Truth,
O'er this fair type of fadeless youth
The dark'ning doom of time appears.

The cup which claimed the potent draft,
Is potionless for good or ill;
But if it held its nectar still,
'Twould ne'er by mortal lips be quaffed;

For we have learned, through earth's long ruth,
How vain a deathless youth would be
That bound us close to sentiency
And kept us alienate from Truth:

Have learned, except a corn of wheat
Shall die, it must must abide alone,—
The shard of sense must be outgrown
Ere we may rise to Life complete.

Thus is this old divinity,
That molders in its leafy close,
Scorned by the humblest man who knows
That dust is not his destiny.

So may our false gods all be cast
To bats and moles,—all idols wrought
Of empty faiths and forms of thought,—
And naught but Truth and Love stand fast!

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UNAUTHORIZED AND UNSAFE LITERATURE
December 14, 1912
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