Athena - An Epic Dream I

By David Gosselin

Featured in our New Lyre Winter 2024 issue.

Canto I.  

He drank over the fissured skies of Earth, 
He sipped from wine that sparkled like the stars. 
Groaning within his ancient tropic courts, 
Beneath the wide arcades of shining stars, 
Zeus mused upon the fate of Earth’s frail forms 
Whose fairest cities and holiest piles, 
Whose wildest lands and sultry seas he smites 
With howling gales of death-exacting force 
And endless rains of unremitting might. 
Yet men appeared content with earthly bread, 
Their race had never tasted sweet ambrosia. 
Zeus gazed upon the seasoned world below: 
“What is so dear to man that won’t be lost 
Upon the hoary seas of time; and who 
Rejoices in the fate he cannot choose— 
How queer and vile are Earth’s thinking things, 
How dim even their brightest of inklings, 
So hopeless even their most daring dreams. 
For, no man can escape gluttonous Time; 
He hounds Earth’s sad race unrelentingly: 
I hear the anthems of the swarthy shores, 
The requiem of tides and writhing seas 
Announcing what must be for every man. 
For mortals—as for flies—life is but death, 
Which raving Time usurps with every breath, 
With each shadow of day and twinkle of night.” 

And yet more mercy shone upon that orb 
Than across Olympian sky and sea. 
For, mortals knew the perils of the Earth, 
The endless dangers of Olympian strife, 
The greediness of unrelenting Time 
Who steals men’s breath more quickly than our rhyme. 
Surrounded by towering colonnades, 
Beneath the naves of scintillating stars, 
The gods devoured ambrosia for days 
—The friends of neither satiety nor want— 
Sweet pleasure always haunting their demesnes. 
Pure streams of iridescent wines careened 
From their colossal cups like sacred streams 
That tumble from the crags of misty peaks. 
Infinite lattice-work, facades and bold 
Reliefs entwined across the endless halls 
Where all Time’s secrets whispered on the walls 
In cryptic fonts and prophetic motifs 
Beyond the wildest dreams of mortal men. 
Far-passed the cloudy fences in the sky 
—Suspended out of time—it hung aloft: 
The snowy realm of the Olympians, 
From which they scoffed at mortal men, whose race 
Should never hope to know immortal Beauty.