I see through the void inane. The splendor
(_numen_) of the gods appears, and the quiet seats which are not shaken
by storm-winds nor aspersed by rain-clouds; nor does the whitely
falling snow-flake, with its hoar rime, violate _their summery warmth_,
but an ever-cloudless ether laughs above them with widespread
radiance." Lucretius had all these lineaments of his Epicurean heaven
from old Homer. They are scattered up and down the "Ilias" and
"Odusseia" in the shape of _disjecta membra_. For instance, the Olympus
which he beholds through a chasm in the walls of the universe, towering
into the pure empyrean, has some of the features of Homer's island
Elysiums, the blissful abodes of mortal heroes who have been divinized
or translated. The Celtic island-valley of Avalon, the abode of King
Arthur, "with its orchard-lawns and bowery hollows," so exquisitely
alluded to by Tennyson, is a kindred spot with the Homeric Elysian
plain. Emerson says, "The race of gods, or those we erring own, are
shadows floating up and down in the still abodes." This is exactly the
meaning of Lucretius also. They are all air-cities, these seats of the
celestials, whatever be the creed,--summery, ethereal climes, fanned
with spice-winds and zephyrs.
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