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(From Ruins of Many Lands)
LAND of the lordly mien and iron frame! | |
| Where wealth was held dishonor, luxury’s smile | |
| Worse than a demon’s soul-destroying wile! | |
| Where every youth that hailed the Day-God’s beam, | |
| Wielded the sword, and dreamt the patriot’s dream; | 5 |
| Where childhood lisped of war with eager soul, | |
| And woman’s hand waved on to glory’s goal. | |
| Ay, she sent forth her son in battle’s face, | |
| Feared not his death, but only his disgrace; | |
| Dropped on his home-borne corpse no woman’s tear, | 10 |
| So he had died in valor’s red career; | |
| Wept only for the son who lost his shield, | |
| And, choosing life to honor, fled the field. * * * * * | |
| What! are these stones, yon column’s broken shaft, | |
| Where moss-crowned Ruin long hath sat and laughed, | 15 |
| These shattered steps, these walls that earthward bow, | |
| All Sparta’s Royal Square can boast of now? | |
| What! in the streets which swept on every side, | |
| Do but wild poppies lift their crimson pride? | |
| Plant of Oblivion! well thou here mayst bloom, | 20 |
| Type of unlettered Sparta’s hastening doom! | |
| The Stoa’s walls with Persian trophies graced, | |
| The circling course where brazen chariots raced, | |
| The pillar, where each name ye once might see | |
| Of those who fell at red Thermopylæ; | 25 |
| Juno’s bright shrine,—the city’s glittering eye,— | |
| Ramparts below, and frowning towers on high,— | |
| All, all are gone, like forms in troubled sleep, | |
| Blooms in the spring or foam upon the deep, | |
| Alone unchanged by battle, time, or blast, | 30 |
| Fresh as when born, Eurotas wanders past, | |
| Breaks in soft kisses on the silver sands, | |
| Trod in old times by valor’s conquering bands, | |
| Mirrors the banks where temples shone of yore, | |
| But ah! the bath of beauty’s train no more; | 35 |
| And further down, where snow-white lilies gleam,— | |
| The drooping Naiads of the classic stream,— | |
| To choiring winds the bubbling waters sigh, | |
| Like Memory’s wail for glories long gone by. | |
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