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Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 1

By G.R.S. Mead

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Poem

Was he one or many, merging
    Name and fame in one,
Like a stream, to which, converging,
    Many streamlets run?
 . . . . . .

Who shall call his dreams fallacious?
    Who has searched or sought
All the unexplored and spacious
    Universe of thought?

Who in his own skill confiding,
    Shall with rule and line
Mark the border-land dividing
    Human and divine?

Trismegistus! Three times greatest!
    How thy name sublime
Has descended to this latest
    Progeny of time!

Longfellow, Hermes Trismegistus. 1

Footnotes
xvi:1 This poem is dated January 1882. Chambers (p. 155, n.) says: “It is noteworthy that the last poem of Longfellow was a lyrical ode in celebration of Hermes Trismegistus.”