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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
GRECIAN ODE, by AUBREY DE VERE Poem Explanation First Line: Yes, yes, 'tis greece! Full many a fane Last Line: "yes, yes, -- 't is hellas, hellas still!" Subject(s): Greece; Greeks | |||
YES, yes, 't is Greece! full many a fane Around me gleams, as white As when it gladdened cape or plain The first time with its light; And living choirs, far-eyed and virgin, Once more through Time's old shade emerging, With dew-brushed sandal and soft sound Salute the dedicated ground. Each hill of asphodel and bays Sufficient deems its height If steep enough its arch to raise A temple into light. From cape to cape, across the deep The "winged Pines" in panic sweep, -- Among their forest-sires so ran Shy wood-nymphs in the days of Pan! In every bay the yearning billows Swell up, as proud as when White Nereids slid from purple pillows Under old Homer's ken. Above them still the Acacia throws The warm shower of her sun-touched snows Profusely as when Zephyr first Deflowered the blooms himself had nursed. Those theatres the white cliffs gird, Those hollows gray and wide, With tamarisk feathered, and moss-furred, Those blue rifts far descried, Those sinuous streams that blushing wander Through labyrinthine oleander, Those crocus mounds, that wind-flower hill, -- Hail, ancient land! 't is Hellas still! Range beyond range the mountains rise; Smooth platform, and meet stage If demigods for chariot prize Fraternal strife should wage. Glad clouds are launched along the wind, As though each snowy tent enshrined Olympian choirs borne lightly by With sound of spheral melody. Behold that goat you rift beneath, Eying those rocks pine-cloven! Nor lacks you mound its living wreath Of goatherds dance-inwoven, Now measuring forth with Attic grace (Like figures round a sculptured vase) The accent of some mythic song, Now hurled, a Bacchic group, along. That old man 'neath the palm who sits Trolls loud a merry lay; Round him as genial fancy flits As when his month was May. Still from the nectared air he quaffs As happy health, as gayly laughs, As when he clomb you breeze-swept hill And see, those maidens fly him still! You mighty ilex, vast and grave, Flings far its restless shadow; But through its trunk, a windowed cave, Long lights divide the meadow: Its roots all round like serpents creep, And honey-dews its branches steep: Thus beamed Dodona's oak afar Fawn-haunted and oracular. What vale was that wherein the Nine Were used with harmony to play? Between the juniper and vine They roam each vale to-day! What stream was that o'er which, flower-wreathed, Her passion Aphrodite breathed? Each lilied bank that stays each rill From that wild breath is quivering still! Yon children chasing the wild bees Have lips as full and fair As Plato had, or Sophocles, When bees sought honey there. But song of bard or sage's lore Those fields ennoble now no more: It is not Greece, -- it must not be, -- And yet, look up, -- the land is free! I gazed round Marathon. The plain In peaceful sunshine slept; Eternal Sabbath there her reign Inviolably kept: "Is this the battle-field?" I cried. An eagle from on high replied With shade far cast and clangor shrill "Yes, yes, -- 't is Hellas, Hellas still!" | 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 |
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