Lightly o'erleaping every unfathomed cave,
Flashing a heliac ray around each cup.
But, now, King Alfred's court dissolves and forms
Anew! The panoramic summer page
Of history, slowly slipping from crag to crag,
Blends Alfred's throne into a triple throne,
Whereto, behold what king, in armour, comes!
Now heaven's artillery wreathes welcomes, while
The first great Edward greets his royal peer!
Up to this triple throne these, our own kings,
Standing thereat, on either hand, invite
The founder of Hellenic liberty,
And at their call, resplendent, Theseus comes.
And clustering courtiers mingle in the clouds:
Homer meets Milton on a celestial plain,
And Pericles, in Cromwell, finds a friend;
The soul of Juliet lives within the soul
Of Sophocles, where immortality
Enthrones and crowns the melancholy Dane,
And Shakespeare crowns, in turn, Antigone.
And, now, the men of old and older days
Exchange, from their commutual realm of thought,
Euphonic phrases and fair compliments:
But lo, where, on yon broad Acropolis,
Dazzling Pentelic marble columns rise!
Whose daring chisel incites to majesty
This temple of Athena Parthenos!
Whence comes this invincible Goddess of War!
Let the clouds answer, 'Phidias once more waves,
As if o'er Attica, his magic wand!'
The power of Pericles was to propose,
But, to dispose, lived only with the gods,
With Phidias, and th' supreme Olympian Jove.
Panathenaeaic festivals we see,
We sing of Theseus, and of liberty,
Bays, to the brow of Aristotle, bind,
Build temples to Minerva, in the clouds,
Loitering, linger on legendary lore
And the divinity and power of Jove—
That we may lift our eyes to higher Light,
And, so await the coming of the King.
—5—
