Page:Poems Barrett.djvu/305

And the brown bees of Hymettus
 Make their honey not so sweet.

Very copious are my praises,
 Though I sip it like a fly!—
All! but, sipping,—times and places
 Change before me suddenly—
As Ulysses' old libation
 Drew the ghosts from every part,
So your Cyprian wine, dear Græcian,
 Stirs the Hades of my heart.

And I think of those long mornings
 Which my Thought goes far to seek,
When, betwixt the folio's turnings,
 Solemn flowed the rhythmic Greek.
Past the pane, the mountain spreading,
 Swept the sheep-bell's tinkling noise,
While a girlish voice was reading,—
 Somewhat low for αι's and οι's!

Then what golden hours were for us!—
 While we sate together there,
How the white vests of the chorus
 Seemed to wave up a live air!
How the cothurns trod majestic
 Down the deep iambic lines?
And the rolling anapæstic
 Curled, like vapour over shrines!

Oh, our Æschylus, the thundrous!
 How he drove the bolted breath
Through the cloud, to wedge it ponderous
 In the gnarled oak beneath.
Oh, our Sophocles, the royal!
 Who was born to monarch's place—
And who made the whole world loyal,
 Less by kingly power than grace.