Here is a poem by the modern Greek poet C.P. Cavafy about the enduring presence of the old gods, translated by Evangelos Sachperoglou:
"Ionic"
Even though we have broken their statues,
even though we drove them out of their temples,
in no wise did the gods die for all that.
O land of Ionia, it is you they love still,
it is you their souls still remember.
When upon you dawns an August morn,
some vigour of their life pervades your atmosphere,
and once in a while, an ethereal, youthful form,
indistinct, in rapid stride, passes above your hills.
I wonder if he had a specific scene in classical literature in mind: the epiphany of Apollo, also at dawn, in Book 2o of Apollonius’s Argonautika. Here it is, in Aaron Poochigian’s rendering:
At just the hour
when ambrosia dawn has not quite come
but there is not full darkness, since a haze
has crept into the night (that is, the hour
that early risers call "the morning twilight"),
the heroes rowed up to the desert island
of Thynias and with an insurmountable
weariness slogged ashore. The son of Leto
revealed himself there. He was leaving Lycia
and striding far away toward the expansive
dominions of the Hyperboreans.
And, as he moved, clusters of golden hair
swung loose and swept down over either cheek.
His left hand brandishing a silver bow,
a quiver hanging from his shoulder down
across his back, he trod his course. The island
quaked with each footstep, and the breakers washed up
onto the beaches. As they watched him, helpless
amazement seized them all, and no one dared
to look directly at his dazzling eyes.
They stood a long time gazing at the ground,
while he, aloof, proceeded through the air
across the sea.((Argonautika 2.669-684 (870-892 in Poochigian's version).))
