Explore "Outlaws" by Robert Graves on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Owls: they whinney down the night,
Bats go zigzag by.
Ambushed in shadow out of sight / The outlaws lie.
Old gods, shrunk to shadows, there / In the wet woods they lurk, / Greedy of human stuff to snare / In webs of murk.
Look up, else your eye must drown / In a moving sea of black / Between the tree-tops, upside down / Goes the sky-track.
Look up, else your feet will stray / Towards that dim ambuscade, / Where spider-like they catch their prey / In nets of shade.
For though creeds whirl away in dust, / Faith fails and men forget, / These aged gods of fright and lust / Cling to life yet.
Old gods almost dead, malign, / Starved of their ancient dues, / Incense and fruit, fire, blood and wine / And an unclean muse.
Banished to woods and a sickly moon, / Shrunk to mere bogey things, / Who spoke with thunder once at noon / To prostrate kings.
With thunder from an open sky / To peasant, tyrant, priest, / Bowing in fear with a dazzled eye / Towards the East.
Proud gods, humbled, sunk so low, / Living with ghosts and ghouls, / And ghosts of ghosts and last year's snow / And dead toadstools.