 | The Poetical Works of (Richard Monckton Milnes) Lord Houghton |  |
43
CORINTH,
ON LEAVING GREECE.
I stood upon that great Acropolis,The turret-gate of Nature's citadel,
Where once again, from slavery's thick abyss
Strangely delivered, Grecian warriors dwell.
I watched the bosom of Parnassus swell,
I traced Eleusis, Athens, Salamis,
And that rude fane below, which lives to tell
Where reigned the City of luxurious bliss.
Within the maze of great Antiquity
My spirit wandered tremblingly along;—
As one who with rapt ears to a wild song
Hearkens some while,—then knows not whether he
Has comprehended all its melody,
So in that parting hour was it with Greece and me.
It is very curious that some awkward ill-proportioned ruins should be the only memorials of that Corinth, whose exquisite refinement in all that could charm and embellish life was a proverb with the world, and who extended her existence so far into the later domains of Roman time. It may be that there was some sanctity attached to this temple, from its very age and ungainliness, which preserved it amid the annihilation of other more sumptuous and polished edifices.
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