02.02.2009, 12:38
Herman Wilhelm Püttmann
1840 - 1914 Australien
The Unknown God
Those rhapsodists of Beauty who portrayed
Manlike their Gods, and man divinely fair;
Who peopled wood and mountain, sea and air
With forms that still enchant us undecayed;
Those Grecian artist-souls, when they surveyed
Their marvellous handiwork-not finding there
The Inscrutable, whom no image can declare -
To the Unknown God a reverent altar made.
So we, to whom not any sanctioned name
Is more than symbol for a veiled Unknown,
Nor any time-engendered, race-born creed
Spacious enough for world-embracing need -
We, too, within our hearts' recesses lone
Burn to the nameless god an altar-flame.
1840 - 1914 Australien
The Unknown God
Those rhapsodists of Beauty who portrayed
Manlike their Gods, and man divinely fair;
Who peopled wood and mountain, sea and air
With forms that still enchant us undecayed;
Those Grecian artist-souls, when they surveyed
Their marvellous handiwork-not finding there
The Inscrutable, whom no image can declare -
To the Unknown God a reverent altar made.
So we, to whom not any sanctioned name
Is more than symbol for a veiled Unknown,
Nor any time-engendered, race-born creed
Spacious enough for world-embracing need -
We, too, within our hearts' recesses lone
Burn to the nameless god an altar-flame.