Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Greece and Turkey in Europe: Vol. XIX. 1876–79.
Grecian Ode
By Aubrey Thomas de Vere (1814–1902)Y
Around me gleams, as white
As when it gladdened cape or plain
The first time with its light;
And living choirs, far-eyed and virgin,
Once more through Time’s old shade emerging,
With dew-brushed sandal and soft sound
Salute the dedicated ground.
Sufficient deems its height
If steep enough its arch to raise
A temple into light.
From cape to cape, across the deep
The “winged Pines” in panic sweep,—
Among their forest-sires so ran
Shy wood-nymphs in the days of Pan!
Swell up, as proud as when
White Nereids slid from purple pillows
Under old Homer’s ken.
Above them still the Acacia throws
The warm shower of her sun-touched snows
Profusely as when Zephyr first
Deflowered the blooms himself had nursed.
Those hollows gray and wide,
With tamarisk feathered, and moss-furred,
Those blue rifts far descried,
Those sinuous streams that blushing wander
Through labyrinthine oleander,
Those crocus mounds, that wind-flower hill,—
Hail, ancient land! ’t is Hellas still!
Smooth platform, and meet stage
If demigods for chariot prize
Fraternal strife should wage.
Glad clouds are launched along the wind,
As though each snowy tent enshrined
Olympian choirs borne lightly by
With sound of spheral melody.
Eying those rocks pine-cloven!
Nor lacks yon mound its living wreath
Of goatherds dance-inwoven,
Now measuring forth with Attic grace
(Like figures round a sculptured vase)
The accent of some mythic song,
Now hurled, a Bacchic group, along.
Trolls loud a merry lay;
Round him as genial fancy flits
As when his month was May.
Still from the nectared air he quaffs
As happy health, as gayly laughs,
As when he clomb yon breeze-swept hill
And see, those maidens fly him still!
Flings far its restless shadow;
But through its trunk, a windowed cave,
Long lights divide the meadow:
Its roots all round like serpents creep,
And honey-dews its branches steep:
Thus beamed Dodona’s oak afar
Fawn-haunted and oracular.
Were used with harmony to play?
Between the juniper and vine
They roam each vale to-day!
What stream was that o’er which, flower-wreathed,
Her passion Aphrodité breathed?
Each lilied bank that stays each rill
From that wild breath is quivering still!
Have lips as full and fair
As Plato had, or Sophocles,
When bees sought honey there.
But song of bard or sage’s lore
Those fields ennoble now no more:
It is not Greece,—it must not be,—
And yet, look up,—the land is free!
In peaceful sunshine slept;
Eternal Sabbath there her reign
Inviolably kept:
“Is this the battle-field?” I cried.
An eagle from on high replied
With shade far cast and clangor shrill
“Yes, yes,—’t is Hellas, Hellas still!”