storms, there in his hiding lurks the dark eclipse, and there are
stored all snows and hails and lightnings that shall vex the earth for
a million years. Gods of our hopes, how shall men's prayers crying from
empty shrines pass through such terrible spaces; how shall they ever
fare above the thunder and many storms to whatever place the gods may
go in that blue waste beyond?'

But the gods bent straight forward, and trampled through the sky and
looked not to the right nor left nor downwards, nor ever heeded my
prayer.

And one cried out hoping yet to stay the gods, though nearly all were
gone, saying:--

'O gods, rob not the earth of the dim hush that hangs round all Your
temples, bereave not all the world of old romance, take not the glamour
from the moonlight nor tear the wonder out of the white mists in every
land; for, O ye gods of the childhood of the world, when You have left
the earth you shall have taken the mystery from the sea and all its
glory from antiquity, and You shall have wrenched out hope from the dim
future. There shall be no strange cries at night time half understood,
nor songs in the twilight, and the whole of the wonder shall have died
with last year's flowers in little gardens or hill-slopes leaning
south; for with the gods must go the enchantment of the plains and all
the magic of dark woods, and something shall be lacking from the quiet
of early dawn. For it would scarce befit the gods to leave the earth
and not take with Them that which They had given it. Out beyond the
still blue spaces Ye will need the holiness of sunset for Yourselves
and little sacred memories and the thrill that is in stories told by
firesides long ago. One strain of music, one song, one line of poetry