University of Virginia Library

Hellas

In Homage to a Royal Bride

There is a land the sun loves more
Than other lands of earth
Where men revered in ancient lore
The cradle of his birth;
Where still as when the old world called
A Siren voice beguiles
The wanderer to abide enthralled
Among enchanted isles:
A land with scanty wealth to boast
Save vines and olive trees
On terraced slopes that ward her coast
Against encroaching seas.
Where that tradition has not died
Which welcomes whoso roams
With tidings from the world outside
In hospitable homes.
A land where none may choose but feel
More near the soul of things,
And nature eager to reveal
Mysterious communings;
Whose harmonies of tone and form
And clear pellucid air
First gave ungoverned minds a norm
And made man's thought aware;
Whose marble cliffs lent their white heart
To masters of design,
Interpreting in terms of art
Their dream of the divine,
The land which quickened worlds unborn
And sowed for all to reap,
And then, forgotten and forlorn
Sank in an age-long sleep,
While Frank and Moslem hordes displaced
The gods they did not know,
And uncouth battlements defaced
Their shrines, yet, even so
The envious fates that know no ruth,
The doom long years exact
Proved vain to mar her ageless youth,
She woke, but one thing lacked
To gladden the reviving soul
Of living Greece again,
A Fairy Princess to control
The loyalties of men.
So you, endowed of Grace and Muse,
Are destined for their land,
To claim the love none may refuse
When you bestow your hand.