A Sicilian Story With Diego de Montilla, and Other Poems. By Barry Cornwall [i.e. Bryan Waller Procter]. Second Edition |
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ON THE STATUE OF THESEUS,
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 | A Sicilian Story |  |
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ON THE STATUE OF THESEUS,
ONE OF THE ELGIN MARBLES.
Aye, this is he,A proud and mighty spirit: how fine his form
Gigantic! moulded like the race that strove
To take Jove's heav'n by storm and scare him from
Olympus. There he sits, a demigod,
Stern as when he of yore forsook the maid
Who doating saved him from the Cretan toil,
Where he had slain the Minotaur. Alas!
Fond Ariadne, thee did he desert
And heartless left thee on the Naxos shore
To languish.—This is he who dared to roam
The world infernal, and on Pluto's queen,
Ceres' own lost Proserpina, did lay
His hand: thence was he prison'd in the vaults
Beneath, 'till freed by Hercules. Methinks,
(So perfect is the Phidian stone) his sire,
The sea-god Neptune, hath in anger stopped
The current of life, and with his trident-touch
Hath struck him into marble.
| A Sicilian Story | |