@3The three ruined temples at Paestum, in lower Italy, are all that remains of the Greek city of Posidonia, which flourished there in the sixth century B.C.@1 I saw three temples, dead and desolate, Between the purple mountains and the sea. About them lay a level, lonely plain Where bloomed the flower of death, the asphodel, Above an ancient city buried there. Upon the plain a placid peasant drove A brace of milk-white oxen to the plow, Across the sunken city's walls and towers, Upturning carelessly the fallow dust That time had made of Posidonia . . . I watched the plowman bend to toss aside Some fragment that had struck against the blade. Was it the shattered image of a god -- One of the long-forgotten gods whose shrines Stood vast and vacant there before my eyes, In beauty terrible? Beholding them, I heard the thunder of the centuries; I glimpsed again the splendid, ancient days, When, by the grace of great Poseidon, This buried city's ships bestrode the waves; When far-off harbors knew her daring sails; When there was noise and commerce in her streets. I heard the singing in the temples there, The chanting priests, the lowing bullocks wreathed For sacrifice, the shouting worshipers Who flung their supplications and their prayers Up to the gods -- the gods so quiet, now, Beneath the furrows of the peasant's plow, So silent there below the asphodel. Only the bare, brown columns, standing stark Against the unremembering sky, remain Between the purple mountains and the sea -- Three lonely temples on a level plain . . . And all about them blooms the flower of death! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE BLACK RIDERS: 1 by STEPHEN CRANE THE SEEDLING by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR THE SANDS OF DEE by CHARLES KINGSLEY FOR 'OUR LADY OF THE ROCKS' (BY LEONARDO DA VINCI) by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI THE LADY OF SHALOTT by ALFRED TENNYSON FIDELIA: 4. THE AUTHOR'S RESOLUTION IN A SONNET by GEORGE WITHER |