Poems (Coates 1916)/Volume II/They Live So Long

by Florence Earle Coates

For other versions of this work, see They live so long.

THEY LIVE SO LONG

THEY live so long, the Gods!
They know
What æons passed before a rose could blow;
What ages numberless, without a name,
Went out in darkness ere the saurian came,
A crawling dulness from the slime of Earth;
What further centuries with movement slow
Were borne along on Time's unebbing flow
Before the weakling man-child came to birth:
All this, and more, they know.

Our dates—how brief!
We cry:—
"Bless us to-day! to-morrow we shall die!"
Divided ever between hope and fear,
Warring with evil which we deem grows strong,
Our knowledge bounded by one little sphere,
We cannot share, for hope of good not nigh,
The peace of the unfathomable sky;
But the Gods patient be; they live so long,
And know that naught can die.