Page:The Statues in the Block and Other Poems (1881).djvu/52

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46
PROMETHEUS—CHRIST.

O, poison-doubt, the answer holds no peace:
Man did not make himself a fiend, but God.

Between them, what? Prometheus stares
Through ether to the lurid eyes of Jove—
Between them, Darkness!

But the gods are dead
Ay, Zeus is dead, and all the gods but Doubt,
And Doubt is brother devil to Despair!

What, then, for us? Better Prometheus' fate,
Who dared the gods, than insect unbelief—
Better Doubt's fitful flame than abject nothingness!

O, world around us, glory of the spheres!
God speaks in ordered harmony—behold!
Between us and the Darkness, clad in light,—
Between us and the curtain of the Vast,—two Forms,
And each is crowned eternally—and One