'Gods of my childhood, guardians of little homes, whither are ye going,
leaving the round earth to swim alone and forgotten in so great a waste
of sky?'

And one answered:

'Heresy apace shoots her fierce glare over the world and men's faith
grows dim and the gods go. Men shall make iron gods and gods of steel
when the wind and the ivy meet within the shrines of the temples of the
gods of old.'

And I left that place as a man leaves fire by night, and going
plainwards down the white road that the gods spurned cried out to all
that I passed to follow me, and so crying came to the city's gates. And
there I shouted to all near the gates:

'From yonder hilltop the gods are leaving earth.'

Then I gathered many, and we all hastened to the hill to pray the gods
to tarry, and there we cried out to the last of the departing gods:

'Gods of old prophecy and of men's hopes, leave not the earth, and all
our worship shall hum about Your ears as never it hath before, and oft
the sacrifice shall squeal upon Your altars.'

And I said:--

'Gods of still evenings and quiet nights, go not from earth and leave
not Your carven shrines, and all men shall worship You still. For
between us and yonder still blue spaces oft roam the thunder and the