Santa Decca
Santa Decca - meaning Summary
Pagan Gods Supplanted
The poem contrasts the fading presence of classical pagan gods with the ascendancy of Christianity. Rituals and joyful rites for deities like Pan and Pallas have ceased, replaced by Mary’s son as sovereign. Yet the speaker senses lingering traces of older divinity in memory and landscape, a cautious hope or fear that some pagan spirit may persist. The tone moves from declarative loss to quiet, watchful expectancy.
Read Complete AnalysesThe Gods are dead: no longer do we bring To grey-eyed Pallas crowns of olive-leaves! Demeter's child no more hath tithe of sheaves, And in the noon the careless shepherds sing, For Pan is dead, and all the wantoning By secret glade and devious haunt is o'er: Young Hylas seeks the water-springs no more; Great Pan is dead, and Mary's Son is King. And yet--perchance in this sea-trancèd isle, Chewing the bitter fruit of memory, Some God lies hidden in the asphodel. Ah Love! if such there be then it were well For us to fly his anger: nay, but see The leaves are stirring: let us watch a-while.
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