HAIL, Nature's utmost boast! unrivalled Greece! My fairest reign! where every power benign Conspired to blow the flower of human kind, And lavished all that genius can inspire. Cear, sunny climates by the breezy main, Ionian or AEgean, tempered kind: Light, airy soils: a country rich, and gay Broke into hills with balmy odors crowned, And, bright with purple harvest, joyous vales: Mountains, and streams, where verse spontaneous flowed; Whence deemed by wondering men the seat of gods, And still the mountains and the streams of song. All that boon Nature could luxuriant pour Of high materials, and my restless arts Frame into finished life. How many states, And clustering towns, and monuments of fame, And scenes of glorious deeds, in little bounds? From the rough tract of bending mountains, beat By Adria's here, there by AEgean waves; To where the deep adorning Cyclade Isles In shining prospect rise, and on the shore Of farthest Crete resounds the Libyan main. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WINTER SONG by KATHERINE MANSFIELD THE POET'S BRIDAL DAY SONG by ALLAN CUNNINGHAM CANZONET: TO HIS COY LOVE by MICHAEL DRAYTON EPITAPHS OF THE WAR, 1914-18: CONVOY ESCORT by RUDYARD KIPLING COLONIAL SET by ALFRED GOLDSWORTHY BAILEY THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER by WILLIAM ROSE BENET THE SINGLE ERROR by VIVIAN PIKE BOLES |