 | Collected poems of Herman Melville |  |
THE PARTHENON
I
SEEN ALOFT FROM AFAR
Estranged in site,Aerial gleaming, warmly white,
You look a suncloud motionless
In noon of day divine;
Your beauty charmed enhancement takes
In Art's long after-shine.
II
NEARER VIEWED
Like Lais, fairest of her kind,
In subtlety your form's defined—
The cornice curved, each shaft inclined,
While yet, to eyes that do but revel
And take the sweeping view,
Erect this seems, and that a level,
To line and plummet true.
In subtlety your form's defined—
The cornice curved, each shaft inclined,
247
And take the sweeping view,
Erect this seems, and that a level,
To line and plummet true.
Spinoza gazes; and in mind
Dreams that one architect designed
Lais—and you!
Dreams that one architect designed
Lais—and you!
III
THE FRIEZE
What happy musings genial wentWith airiest touch the chisel lent
To frisk and curvet light
Of horses gay—their riders grave—
Contrasting so in action brave
With virgins meekly bright,
Clear filing on in even tone
With pitcher each, one after one
Like water-fowl in flight.
IV
THE LAST TILE
When the last marble tile was laidThe winds died down on all the seas;
Hushed were the birds, and swooned the glade;
Ictinus sat; Aspasia said
“Hist!—Art's meridian, Pericles!”
| Collected poems of Herman Melville | |