Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AT SAMARIA, by CLINTON SCOLLARD


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AT SAMARIA, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: We climbed the hill where from samaria's crown
Last Line: And herod but the shadow of a name!
Subject(s): Herod The Great (73-4 B.c.); Jews; Judaism


WE climbed the hill where from Samaria's crown
In marble majesty once looked away
Toward Hermon, white beneath the Syrian day;
And lo, no vestige of the old renown.

Save a long colonnade bescarred and brown,
Remained to tell of Herod's regal sway,
The gold, the gauds, the imperial display,
He heaped on Judah's erewhile princely town.

Ruin was riotous; decay was king;
An olive -root engript the topmost stone
As tho it clutched and crusht the thing called fame;
Seemed as a fragile wind-flower petal blown
Into the void, the past's vain glorying,
And Herod but the shadow of a name!





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net