University of Virginia Library

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,

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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.
Spinoza gazes; and in mind
Dreams that one architect designed
Lais—and you!

III
THE FRIEZE

What happy musings genial went
With 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 laid
The winds died down on all the seas;
Hushed were the birds, and swooned the glade;
Ictinus sat; Aspasia said
“Hist!—Art's meridian, Pericles!”