Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ODE TO PROFESSOR DIMITRY, by JAMES RYDER RANDALL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ODE TO PROFESSOR DIMITRY, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Behold the man! What matchless godlike grace
Last Line: How glorious yet, thou mecca of the soul!
Subject(s): Odes (as Poetic Form); Praise; Teaching & Teachers


BEHOLD the man! What matchless godlike grace
Is blazoned round his great, expressive face!
The voice so full, so tremulously grand
Speaks from his heart the woes of that brave land,
Which fallen now, once reigned the titled Queen
Of Mind, of Soul—all-seeing and all-seen!
Nurse of the Gods! fair freedom's blest abode!
The poet's pride! whence Homer's song has flowed,
Rolling with ocean-flow from age to age—
The first—the last—the best on History's page!
Foremost in Art, in Science, and in Strife,
In columned grandeur and in marbled life,
Bend, bend before Hellenic tow'ring might
Ye gifted vot'ries of the pure and bright!
All this and more thrills forth—how silent all!
The burning echo riots round the hall;
In every breast responsive echoes breathe,
The ravished senses twine a deathless wreath
For those who fought for Freedom, scorning shame,
Then yielding life, bequeathed themselves to fame!
Thus, not in vain, he courts the willing ear—
Calls on the dead, and living forms appear;
Both gods and men in awful grandeur move—
The "Blind old Bard"—the "Cloud-compelling Jove"!
He bids them tell of days when Greece was free,
When Athens ruled triumphant o'er the sea,
Athens the peerless—prescient—the blind—
Athens the mutable—the undefined!
The fount of Eloquence! whose spring inspired
Her godlike son, and with his breath expired;
Which in one warning yet majestic cry
Made Philip quail and cowards gladly die!
When Sparta stalked the Lioness of the shore
With iron nerves—brute heart—what, nothing more?
Ay! ay! a single boon kind Nature gave,
Alone, to drag her from Oblivion's grave;
One hoary rock, the Keystone of the plain—
A shivered altar but a hallowed fane;
For heroes' blood has stained the sacred stone,
Dread august sacrifice! this—this alone
Redeems the land with a renewing birth,
Its faults forgotten in that faultless worth!
Shades of the brave! your blood's not vainly shed—
O stern baptism on a country's head!
Yet did that blood quench Persia's fiery pride
And seal the spot where heroes fell—not died,
Leaving their deeds an heirloom to the free—
Unmoldering Record! stern Thermopylæ!
Now turn again—exulting to the skies
A temple flits before the captive eyes,
Unrivaled, chaste e'en as the new-born day,
In perfect form it looms along the way—
Unrivaled whole—unrivaled in decay!
Behold the Parthenon—the miracle—the fair!
Look once again—'tis not—ay yes, 'tis there,
A pilfered wreck, a desecrated shrine,
Though plundered oft, polluted, yet divine—
Thy mind ascends from a dismembered whole,
How glorious yet, thou Mecca of the Soul!





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