Gathered poems of Ernest Myers

Of all fair scenes let this be called most fair;
Not for the prospect only, plain and hill
Upsoaring to the solitary snow
Or merged in silver shining of the sea,
And these grey columns faintly flushed with rose,
Divine in ruin—not for these alone:
The Presences of Gods are all around.
But now amid the oaks of Arcady
Pan passed me, hidden by the russet leaves
That trembled at his coming, and I knew
By their glad shuddering that the God was there;
And far to the East, where stern Taÿgetus

Rears his white ridge against the boundless blue,
Lo, in the hanging cloud-wreaths hardly seen,
Stalk the dread phantoms of the Dorian Twins,
Still tutelar, and o'er the tomb forlorn
Of their discrownëd Sparta watching well.

But chiefliest where I stand is holy ground.
Helper Apollo! by that name revered
In this fair shrine with song and sacrifice,
What sacred prompting urged the votive zeal
Of Phigaleian folk so high to build
Thy temple, lone amid the lonely hills?
Perchance some townsman fleeing in dark dread
From the plague-stricken city of his folk
Paused in this place; then suddenly he was ware
Of One who stood beside him, whose bright head
Makes even Olympus brighter when he comes,
And the sweet air wherein Gods breathe more sweet:
No rattling darts of death his shoulder bare,
As once at Troy, nor like to night he came,
But robed in dewy radiance of the dawn.
Almost he might have seemed his Healer Son,
Koronis' child, yet more august than he.

“Return unto thine house; the plague is stayed”:
So spake he; and the wondering man returned
And found the vision true, and told his folk
Of that bright God who helped them, and they heard
And worshipt, and with full hearts fervently
On this high seat, where in the vision stood
That mighty Helper of the hurts of men,
They reared this pillared temple chastely fair,
This sister of the Athenian maiden-shrine,
This Dorian mood breathing through silent stone.

O noble symbol of a noble life,
A life wherein all vigour and all grace,
All quickening impulse and all chastening thought,
The inspiration of things old and new,
Of high tradition and of bold advance,
Should meet to mould a human soul divine,
Serene and strong, a healthful harmony;
And all this goodly thing be consecrate
Unto that Power of Healing, whose high task
Is wrought of Man's hands and of God's alike,
Of God as Man, at his most godlike then.

Verily such life were as this mountain-shrine,
Which seems, albeit of sculptured pediment,
Of metope and of cornice left forlorn,
Yet not less holy therefore or less fair,
Only more filled with moving majesty.

University of Virginia Library

ARCADIA