108
PRIZE POEMS.
Though power and praise forsake thee, and forget,
Desolate Athens, thou art lovely yet!
Around thy walls, in every wood and vale,
Thine own sweet bird, the lonely nightingale,
Still makes her home; and, when the moonlight hour
Flings its soft magic over brake and bower,
Murmurs her sorrows from her ivy shrine,
Or the thick foliage of the deathless vine.
Where erst Megæra chose her fearful crown,
The bright narcissus hangs his clusters down;
And the gay crocus decks with glittering dew
The yellow radiance of his golden hue.
Still thine own olive haunts its native earth,
Green as when Pallas smiled upon its birth;
And still Cephisus pours his sleepless tide,
So clear and calm, along the meadow side,
That you may gaze long hours upon the stream,
And dream at last the poet's witching dream,
That the sweet Muses, in the neighbouring bowers,
Sweep their wild harps, and wreathe their odorous flowers,
And laughing Venus o'er the level plains
Waves her light lash, and shakes her gilded reins.
How terrible is Time! his solemn years,
The tombs of all our hopes and all our fears,
In silent horror roll!—the gorgeous throne,
The pillar'd arch, the monumental stone,
Melt in swift ruin; and of mighty climes,
Where Fame told tales of virtues and of crimes,
Where Wisdom taught, and Valour woke to strife,
And Art's creations breathed their mimic life,
And the young Poet, when the stars shone high,
Drank the deep rapture of the quiet sky,
Nought now remains, but Nature's placid scene,
Heaven's deathless blue, and Earth's eternal green,
The showers that fall on palaces and graves,
The suns that shine for freemen and for slaves:
Desolate Athens, thou art lovely yet!
Around thy walls, in every wood and vale,
Thine own sweet bird, the lonely nightingale,
Still makes her home; and, when the moonlight hour
Flings its soft magic over brake and bower,
Murmurs her sorrows from her ivy shrine,
Or the thick foliage of the deathless vine.
Where erst Megæra chose her fearful crown,
The bright narcissus hangs his clusters down;
And the gay crocus decks with glittering dew
The yellow radiance of his golden hue.
Still thine own olive haunts its native earth,
Green as when Pallas smiled upon its birth;
And still Cephisus pours his sleepless tide,
So clear and calm, along the meadow side,
That you may gaze long hours upon the stream,
And dream at last the poet's witching dream,
That the sweet Muses, in the neighbouring bowers,
Sweep their wild harps, and wreathe their odorous flowers,
And laughing Venus o'er the level plains
Waves her light lash, and shakes her gilded reins.
How terrible is Time! his solemn years,
The tombs of all our hopes and all our fears,
In silent horror roll!—the gorgeous throne,
The pillar'd arch, the monumental stone,
Melt in swift ruin; and of mighty climes,
Where Fame told tales of virtues and of crimes,
Where Wisdom taught, and Valour woke to strife,
And Art's creations breathed their mimic life,
And the young Poet, when the stars shone high,
Drank the deep rapture of the quiet sky,
Nought now remains, but Nature's placid scene,
Heaven's deathless blue, and Earth's eternal green,
The showers that fall on palaces and graves,
The suns that shine for freemen and for slaves:
