TWILIGHT ON ACRO-CORINTH
From the Venetian arch, the doubting owl
Sends forth his whimper; where the sheep-dogs lope
Sounds donkey’s thirsty octave, call of fowl,
And near green-silver maize and poppied slope,
Goat-bells ring jangling on the tether-rope
As, truant from some hooded shepherd’s scowl,
Dim, hornèd shapes in black thyme-bushes grope.
I look four ways down all the rich descents
To mountain, cliff, and sea. First to the South
Where Argolis in purple permanence
Gives sumptuous breast to dark sea’s hungry mouth.
Enthroned in mountain fastness, warm, immense,
Or, lying prone by misty olive-fence
Losing herself in languid, dusty drouth.
Far Eastward, islanded Ægina keeps
Her tree-girt shrine, and Sunion the prow
Of white sea-temple lifts on Laurion steeps
Where mines are hid, and silver quarries show.
Then, like a bee, the eager eye upsweeps
To Athens, where the Acros-flowers grow
And the dim road to far Eleusis creeps.
I look toward Athens, over golden gorse,
Purple anemones, Saronic seas,
Powerful, kingly blue. I see the source
Of all Mind ever was, and then the trees
Blurring, I turn me West, perforce
Sweeping Arcadian ridges, as light flees
And over paling skies cloud-horses course.
Bœotia, Phocis, Lokris ranges tread
Vast gorges ’round the Gulf’s imperial shores;
Like citadels, their summits, thunder-bred,
And at their feet are sacred river-floors,
And many a mountain stream its crystal bed
Has hidden beyond those labyrinthine doors
From whence down winds the clue-like glancing thread.
And as the night surrounds me and the stars
Climb up the clouds like mountain-pastured flocks,
I muse on Progress, that which hurts and scars
Nature with blood, machines, and battle-shocks.
But, as I gaze, the whole wild sky unbars
War’s end portending; the new time unlocks
Ultimate peace no human passion mars.