 | Gathered poems of Ernest Myers |  |
56
SYRACUSE
This is the seventh morning since mine eyes
Beheld the hallowed plain of Marathon.
Seven days: but in the story of the Earth
Is writ, From Marathon to Syracuse
Are seventy years and seven; for so long
Endured that city's prime which was the world's.
In this blue slumbering harbour of the Bay
Clashed the great combat of extreme despair,
The agony of Athens: those grey slopes
Hold yet the cruel quarries where the sun
Beat fierce upon the pain of fainting limbs,
Which erst upon the great day of the feast
Rode radiant to Athene's citadel.
Beheld the hallowed plain of Marathon.
Seven days: but in the story of the Earth
Is writ, From Marathon to Syracuse
Are seventy years and seven; for so long
Endured that city's prime which was the world's.
In this blue slumbering harbour of the Bay
Clashed the great combat of extreme despair,
The agony of Athens: those grey slopes
Hold yet the cruel quarries where the sun
Beat fierce upon the pain of fainting limbs,
Which erst upon the great day of the feast
Rode radiant to Athene's citadel.
City of Theseus, thou too, having dared
Much nobly, like thy champion prince of old,
Wert lastly over-daring to thy fall.
But not on those dark ways shall Memory pause,
Dark ways of Erebus and hounds of hell;
Rather shall she bethink her with what front
He met the twy-form monster, Minotaur,
Unterrified, and smote, and ended him,
And with what thanks round that bold rescuer thronged
The clinging hands and glad adoring eyes
Of those thirteen, helped by his hand from death.
Much nobly, like thy champion prince of old,
57
But not on those dark ways shall Memory pause,
Dark ways of Erebus and hounds of hell;
Rather shall she bethink her with what front
He met the twy-form monster, Minotaur,
Unterrified, and smote, and ended him,
And with what thanks round that bold rescuer thronged
The clinging hands and glad adoring eyes
Of those thirteen, helped by his hand from death.
Like danger threatened then the hopes of Earth,
O saviour City, when the barbarous host
Swarmed westward, and the multitude of isles
Trembled, and Thebes Kadmeän, and the soil
Which bred Achilles; but thy champion arm
Took up the perilous challenge, and struck home.
O saviour City, when the barbarous host
Swarmed westward, and the multitude of isles
Trembled, and Thebes Kadmeän, and the soil
Which bred Achilles; but thy champion arm
Took up the perilous challenge, and struck home.
| Gathered poems of Ernest Myers | |