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Clad in their strict and all-encincturing
Close-pleated vesture hieratical
The old Gods sate and watch'd the world go by.
Their writhen mouth and long-drawn dreaming eyes
Frozen to smiling immobility,
Their calm brows set in vague unearthly gaze
Contemplative of unimagin'd space,
Looking beyond the incense and the lights,
Impassive of the pains, the pray'rs of men!
Hou-Ché:
Sought or unsought still the old Gods endure!
Near to my home, the other side the world,
A God awaits his vanish'd worshippers,
Deep in the still recesses of a wood
Where once a mighty city teem'd with men
A myriad fires smok'd, a thousand bells
Called from the temples years and years along!
Temple and town have pass'd to nothingness,
