II. Ancient of days! august Athena! where, Where are thy men of might? thy grand in soul? They won, and pass'd away-is this the whole? A school-boy's tale, the wonder of an hour! The warrior's weapon and the sophist's stole Are sought in vain, and o'er each mouldering tower, Dim with the mist of years, gray flits the shade of power. III. Son of the morning, rise! approach you here! Look on this spot-a nation's sepulchre ! years, till man shall learn Vainly his incense soars, his victim bleeds; Poor child of Doubt and Death, whose hope is built on reeds. IV. Bound to the earth, he lifts his eye to heaven- That little urn saith more than thousand homilies. V. Or burst the vanish'd Hero's lofty mound; Far on the solitary shore he sleeps: (3) He fell, and falling nations mourn'd around; Nor warlike-worshipper his vigil keeps Where demi-gods appear'd, as records tell. Remove yon skull from out the scatter'd heaps: Is that a temple where a God may dwell? Why ev'n the worm at last disdains her shatter'd cell! VI. Look on its broken arch, its ruin'd wall, And Passion's host, that never brook'd control: VII. Well didst thou speak, Athena's wisest son! ૮ "All that we know is, nothing can be known." Why should we shrink from what we cannot shun? Each has his pang, but feeble sufferers groan With brain-born dreams of evil all their own. Pursue what Chance or Fate proclaimeth best ; Peace waits us on the shores of Acheron: There no forced banquet claims the sated guest, But Silence spreads the couch of ever welcome rest. VIII. Yet if, as holiest men have deem'd, there be A land of souls beyond that sable shore, To shame the doctrine of the Sadducee And sophists, madly vain of dubious lore; With those who made our mortal labours light! The Bactrian, Samian sage, and all who taught the right! IX. There, thou!-whose love and life together fled, Have left me here to love and live in vain Twined with my heart, and can I deem thee dead, For me 'twere bliss enough to know thy spirit blest! X. Here let me sit upon this massy stone, The marble column's yet unshaken base; Here, son of Saturn! was thy fav'rite throne: (4) Yet these proud pillars claim no passing sigh, XI. But who, of all the plunderers of yon fane The last, the worst, dull spoiler, who was he? Thy free-born men should spare what once was free; And bear these altars o'er the long-reluctant brine. (5) |