Read before the Lambda Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, June 24, 1902

Idle gods of Old Olympus—Zeus and his immortal

clan,

Grown in stature, grace and wisdom, meekly serve

the will of man.

Every elemental giant has been trained to seek and

raise

Gates of the "impossible" that lead to undiscovered

ways.

Man hath come to stranger things than ever bard

or prophet saw.

Lo, he sits in judgment on the gods and doth amend

their law.

Now reality with wonder-deed of ancient fable teems—

Fact is wrought of golden fancy from the old

Homeric dreams.

Zeus, with thought to load the fulmen gathered for

his mighty sling,

Hurls across the ocean desert as 'twere ut a pebble-fling;

Titans move the gathered harvests, push the loaded

ship and train,

Rushing swiftly 'twixt horizons, shoulder to the

hurricane.

Hermes, of the winged sandal, strides from midday

into night.

Pallas, with a nobler passion, turns the hero from

his fight.

Vulcan melts the sundered mountain into girder,

beam and frieze.

Where the mighty wheel is turning hear the groan

of Hercules.

Eyes of man, forever reaching where immensity

envails,

View the ships of God in full career with light upon

their sails.

Read the tonnage, log, and compass—measure each

magnetic chain

Fastened to the fiery engine towing in the upper

main.

Man hath searched the small infernos, narrow as a

needle's eye,

Rent the veil of littleness 'neath which unnumbered

dragons lie.

Conquered pain with halted feeling, baned the

falling House of Life,

As with breeding rats infested, ravening in bloody

strife.

Change hath shorn the distances from little unto

mighty things—

Aye, from man to God, from poor to rich, from

peasants unto kings.

Justice, keen-eyed, Saxon-hearted, scans the records

of the world,

Makes the heartless tyrant tremble when her stem

rebuke is hurled.

Thought-ways, reaching under oceans or above the

mountain height,

Drain to distant, darkened realms the ceaseless

overflow of light.

In the shortened ways of travel Charity shall seek

her goal,

Find the love her burden merits in the commerce

of the soul.

Right must rule in earth and heaven, though its

coming here be slow;

Gods must grow in grace and wisdom as the mind

of man doth grow;

Law and Prophet be forgotten, deities uprise and

fall

Till one God, one hope, one rule of life be great

enough for all.