| |
| PAVEN gray, | |
| The triumphal way | |
| Clove the plain like a javelin-head, | |
| Circled the hill in a broad progression | |
| And up to the white acropolis sped: | 5 |
| Waiting the feet of the great procession | |
| It lay to the noonday sun outspread. | |
| |
| Ninety columns of rough-hewn granite | |
| Edged the way in a lordly line— | |
| Rocks hewn down | 10 |
| From a mountain-crown | |
| In giant ages by kings divine: | |
| Each—the leap of a man might span it— | |
| Towered as high as a forest pine. | |
| |
| Dust looms gray | 15 |
| Down the pillared way, | |
| Foaming to gold where the sun breaks in. | |
| They are coming. The noise grows deeper and duller: | |
| See through the great blocks, out and in, | |
| Flashes of sharp and insolent color | 20 |
| Leap through the crowd with the marching din! | |
| |
| The rumor thickens:—a fear! wonder! | |
| Neighings and shouts and the tramp that casts | |
| Like a smoking pyre | |
| The white dust higher! | 25 |
| The pikes are clustered like harbor-masts, | |
| The chariot-wheels on the pavement thunder, | |
| And the horses leap at the trumpet-blasts. | |
| |
| The heralds troop | |
| In a serried group; | 30 |
| The long bright shafts of their trumpets rise | |
| Like sun-rays over a mountain shooting; | |
| Fire on the bright brass flashes and flies, | |
| Fierce as the raucous music bruiting | |
| Triumph up to the holloing skies. | 35 |
| |
| Banners wavered with lazy flappings | |
| Over the tall crests dancing there. | |
| Like beasts afraid | |
| The long horns brayed | |
| Harsh through the hot and dusty air, | 40 |
| And greens and scarlets of robes and trappings | |
| Threaded the rocks with a sultry glare. | |
| |
| Now they strode | |
| Up the mounting road, | |
| Their rich barbaric music sounding | 45 |
| Tawny and fierce, till it shrank and paled, | |
| As the carolling cohort dwindled, rounding | |
| The curve of the hill, and its echoes hailed | |
| Far, from the loftier crags rebounding. | |
| |
| Fires from the foundering sun-ship curdle | 50 |
| Westering cloud-banks. High and afar, | |
| The marching lines | |
| On the curved inclines | |
| Gleam like a string of jewels that star | |
| The breast of the towering hill they girdle | 55 |
| With emerald, ruby and golden spar. | |
| |
| In the phoenix-glow | |
| Of the sunset, lo | |
| A crown of fire was the far-seen crowd | |
| High on the terraced summit swaying. | 60 |
| The hill that rose to the evening cloud | |
| Stood like an altar where, after the slaying, | |
| Flames of the offering leapt and bowed. | |
| |
| And over that ocean of men impassioned, | |
| Men whom the current of life bore high, | 65 |
| In the great repose | |
| Of godhead rose, | |
| Throned august in the golden sky, | |
| From the pure white splendor of marble fashioned, | |
| The porch of the Temple of Victory. | 70 |
| |
