Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ATHENS, by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE


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ATHENS, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Lo, I stand / here on this brow's crown of the city's head
Last Line: Should men say, here was athens.
Subject(s): Athens, Greece


Lo, I stand
Here on this brow's crown of the city's head
That crowns its lovely body, till death's hour
Waste it; but now the dew of dawn and birth
Is fresh upon it from thy womb, and we
Behold it born how beauteous; one day more
I see the world's wheel of the circling sun
Roll up rejoicing to regard on earth
This one thing goodliest, fair as heaven or he,
Worth a god's gaze or strife of gods; but now
Would this day's ebb of their spent wave of strife
Sweep it to sea, wash it on wreck, and leave
A costless thing contemned; and in our stead,
Where these walls were and sounding streets of men,
Make wide a waste for tongueless water-herds
And spoil of ravening fishes; that no more
Should men say, Here was Athens.





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