ALAS! how sad that simple truth Once sung to Grecian men, That legend passion-fraught -- @3Lhkqion apwlesen!@1 For had the foot of casual crime Passed harmless by, and not Doomed to an end before its time That late lamented pot, What ample views, what prospects high Before my fancy start! Methinks I see it typify Some phase of ancient art: It might, exposed to public view, Have proved perchance to us How very, very far from true Is old Herodotus, Or with the centuries' increase (A beacon 'mid the mists That wrap the chronicles of Greece For archaeologists) Have thrown a flood of radiant light On manners, customs, dates, And settled for a decade quite What view shall pay in Greats. I see Extensionists in scores Before that relic sit, Imbibing Greek through all their pores By contemplating it: For 'tis not verse, and 'tis not prose, But earthenware alone It is that ultimately shows What men have thought and done! And so, though still in Hellas lies Full many a pot and pan Wherein the souls who books despise May read the lot of man, Yet will I weep for simple truth On all occasions when I read the tale of how @3Lhkqion apwlesen!@1 | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MURMURINGS IN A FIELD HOSPITAL by CARL SANDBURG A PIPE OF TOBACCO (MR. POPE'S STYLE IMITATED) by ISAAC HAWKINS BROWNE TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 3. AFTER CIVILISATION (2) by EDWARD CARPENTER TO THE SPIRIT OF SONG; APOLOGY by ALICE CARY OF PAPA AL by OUIDA LOUISE CHEYNEY IN THE GREAT METROPOLIS by ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH |