Classic and Contemporary Poetry
GREECE, by JAMES GATES PERCIVAL Poet's Biography First Line: Even as the pilgrim / goes with his eye fixed on his prophet's tomb Last Line: Till all is sweetly pale! Subject(s): Greece; Greeks | ||||||||
EVEN as the pilgrim Goes with his eye fixed on his prophet's tomb, Or where his god is laid, so let me on, Bent to that summit, where retiring day Kindles its latest fires. I now have conquered, And heaven is all above me. Earth below Spreads infinite, and rolls its mountain waves Tumultuously around me. Breathless awe Broods o'er my spirit, and I stand awhile Rapt and absorbed. The magic vision floats Dimly before me, and uncertain lights Flash on my troubled eye, and then a calm, High and uplifted, like the peace of heaven, Steals on my heart, and instantly my thoughts Are fixed and daring. 'T is the land of song, -- The home of heroes. O ye boundless plains, Ye snowy peaks, ye dusky mountains, heaped Like ocean billows, far retiring vales, Blue seas, and gleaming bays, and islands set Like gems in gold! to you I kneel with awe Deep and unfeigned. If I have ever felt The stirring energies of warlike virtue, The sternness of unbending right, the bliss Of high and holy dreams, the charm of beauty, The power of verse and song, only to you Be all the praise. And now ye are before me, Rich with the tints of evening. What an arch Of golden light swells, from the point of setting, Over the Delphian hills! and how it rolls, In dazzling waves, round all the mingled heights That rise between! Yonder my eye can catch Glimpses from out the far Achaian gulf, Waving with flame, and seeming through the depths, That dimly open to them, fiery portals To brighter worlds. But now to calmer scenes And shadier skies. I trace the silver stream Threading its way, now hidden, now revealed, To the round vale, half up the mountain-side, Then lost in woods, and then in distant windings Stealing along the plain. You lower ridge Lies dark in shade; and hidden half in trees, The whitewashed convent, with its gilded cross And humble tower, sends upward through the hushed And vacant air its vesper knoll, by distance Mellowed to music. This is all the sound That tells of life. Down through a gloomy gorge, Walled in by rifted rocks, the vale of Ascra Lies, like a nook withdrawn beyond the reach Of violence; and yet the crescent crowns A minaret, and tells a startling tale Of woe and fear. Beyond, the Theban plain Stretches to airy distance, till it seems Lifted in air, -- green cornfields, olive groves Blue as their heaven, and lakes, and winding rivers, And towns whose white walls catch the amber light, That burns, then dies away, and leaves them pale And glimmering, while a floating vapor spreads From marsh and stream, till all is like a sea, Rolling to CEta, and the Euboean chain, Stretching, in purple dimness, on the verge Of this unclouded heaven. Far in the east The AEgean twinkles, and its thousand isles Hover in mist, and round the dun horizon Are many floating visions, clouds, or peaks, Tinted with rose. Before me lies a land Hallowed with a peculiar sanctity, The eye of Greece, -- a wild of rocks and hills, Lifted in shadowy cones, and deep between Mysterious hollows, once the proud abodes Of genius and of power. Now twilight throws Around her softest veil, a purple haze Investing all at hand, and farther on Skyey and faint and dim. Methinks I catch, Through the far opening heights, the Parthenon, And all its circling glories. Salamis Lies on its dusky wave; and farther out Islands and capes, and many a flitting sail White as a sea-bird's wing. The stars are out, And all beneath is dark. The lower hills Float in obscurity, and plain and sea Are blended in one haze. Cyllene still Bears on her snowy crown the rosy blush Of twilight; and thy loftier head, Parnassus, Has not yet lost the glory and the blaze That suit the heaven of song. There let me pause; There fix my latest look. How beautiful, Sublimely beautiful, thou hoverest High in the vacant air! Thou seemest uplifted From all of earth, and like an island floating Away in heaven. How pure the eternal snows That crown thee! yet how rich the golden blaze That flashes from thy peak! how like the rose, The virgin rose, the tints that fade below, Till all is sweetly pale! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A FLOWER NO MORE THAN ITSELF by LINDA GREGG ALMA IN ALL SEASONS by LINDA GREGG ALMA IN THE DARK by LINDA GREGG ALMA TO HER SISTER by LINDA GREGG ALONE WITH THE GODDESS by LINDA GREGG APHRODITE AND THE NATURE OF ART by LINDA GREGG AS BEING IS ETERNAL by LINDA GREGG THE CORAL GROVE by JAMES GATES PERCIVAL |
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