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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TO AN IONIAN BOY, by GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY Poet's Biography First Line: Boy of mitylene! Thou Last Line: Fairer than hath fallen to me! Subject(s): Ancestry & Ancestors; Greece; U.s. - Immigration And Emigration; Greeks | |||
BOY of Mitylene! thou Of the immortal foot and brow, Sailing o'er the harbor-sea In my boat that hideth thee, Fleeing from the Turkish power That defiles thine Asian bower, Seeking that far western shore, Where thy hopes have gone before Even with thy childish years Through heavy toil and orphan tears! -- Thou, whose eyes of wonder see The American in me; Confident to take my hand As an earnest of the land That shall mother thee and thine, Our common mother, thine and mine! I wonder at thy courage, child, Venturing the unknown wild; The ticket, hidden in thy sole, Thy anchor where the great seas roll; The White Star, pinned within thy shirt Thy only talisman from hurt; Earth's and ocean's waif thou art! Waif of God! brave is thy heart! Three hundred years have passed away Since upon the Devon bay Rowed the English emigrant From whose loins my line I vaunt. Centuries three their leaves have shed Since on the rock he made his bed, And helped to build with axe and book The land to which all nations look. Generations nine have wrought To save and better what he brought; Each, in turn, on land and sea, Toiling for the next to be. Lo, the forest fell like wheat; Cities blossomed round their feet; Came war, came peace, came war again; And now 'twas muscle, now 'twas brain; And now 'twas gold, and now 'twas blood; All things tried them, -- firm they stood; And the land from sea to sea Spread, and was filled with liberty; And serving mankind more and more The race found sweetness at the core, -- A hand of welcome for all men, And free to all the book, the pen. So grew the world my boyhood trod, Thy home to be, thy sky, thy sod, And climbed Time's zodiac to shed Heaven's horn of blessing on thy head. To this end my fathers toiled; Take thou the heritage unsoiled, -- Years of ever milder power, Years of ever wealthier dower; Make free to all the tool, the soil, -- So shalt thou share the mighty toil! For now full circuit comes the wheel; The land a newer blood doth feel, Thine and others; take thy turn, And with the new world's passion burn! Unto thee we give the state, Rich and glorious, free and great; To the old blood I belong; Swan-like dies it in my song; And all that was of life and love, Behold I am the fruit thereof, -- Speeding on the ocean track, To the old world turning back, And now unto thy land I come As the spirit travels home. When again three hundred years Have torn their way through blood and tears (For this old world will not change, Howsoe'er men roam and range), Some boy beautiful with grace Dropt from thy vanished form and face, Shall proudly trace his humble line To Lesbos, and to thee and thine. Over ocean will he come, Seeking the ancestral home, Where freedom's war-cry with fierce clang First against the tyrant rang, Where Sappho loved, Alcaeus sang. Will he look on sea and sun, On isle and mount, as I have done, -- Youngest-born of time's last race, On his knees lay down his face, Mourning in his lonely mind, Finding what he weeps to find? -- The old forms gone from grove and hill, The armor rust, the music still; The gods of Greece long overthrown, The temples razed, the statues down; Scant relics of the brain and hand That for the soul all beauty planned! Ah, not for this his tears shall roll, For plinth and coin, for bust and scroll; He weeps the ruin of the soul. O City of the violet crown! O race familiar with the god! O lyric isles! O civic town! The soul's first home was this dear sod! O Greece, where first the race began To know itself, and reason clear, Thou the Creator wast of man! Thou didst abolish human fear! And still from thee he takes the best That his dark spirit can enjoy; -- Because Greece held thee to her breast, Therefore I love thee, wandering boy! Nothing in all the world so sweet As was the message of her feet; Nothing in all the world so dear As now her human aims appear; Nothing in all the world so wise As was the bright death in her eyes; O wisest, dearest, sweetest far, In love and beauty, sport and war! Then shall that far American, Who out of thee shall be made man, Looking on plain and sea and sky, Unto his gods lift up his cry: -- "O Land of Promise in the west, So to the shades go thou not down! Nor with great Athens take thy rest, My country of the starry crown!" Fair befall thee, tender child! Seek thou my home; grow sweet, grow mild! And fair befall thy race to be, -- Fairer than hath fallen to me! | 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 APHRODITE AND THE NATURE OF ART by LINDA GREGG AS BEING IS ETERNAL by LINDA GREGG AT GIBRALTAR by GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY |
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