After Paradise or Legends of Exile With Other Poems: By Robert, Earl of Lytton (Owen Meredith) |
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ATHENS. |
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 | After Paradise or Legends of Exile |  |
135
ATHENS.
(1865.)
The burnt-out heart of Hellas here behold!
Quench'd fire-pit of the quick explosive Past,
Thought's highest crater—all its fervours cold,
Ashes and dust at last!
Quench'd fire-pit of the quick explosive Past,
Thought's highest crater—all its fervours cold,
Ashes and dust at last!
And what Hellenic light is living now
To gild, not Greece, but other lands, is given:
Not where the splendour sank, the after-glow
Of sunset stays in heaven.
To gild, not Greece, but other lands, is given:
Not where the splendour sank, the after-glow
Of sunset stays in heaven.
But loud o'er Grecian ruins still the lark
Doth, as of old, Hyperion's glory hail,
And from Hymettus, in the moonlight, hark
The exuberant nightingale!
Doth, as of old, Hyperion's glory hail,
And from Hymettus, in the moonlight, hark
The exuberant nightingale!
| After Paradise or Legends of Exile | |