Ah! would that as some ancient ring
To us, on shell or stone, doth bring,
Art's marvels perished long ago,
So I, within the sonnet's space,
The large Hellenic lines might trace,
The statue in the cameo!
HELEN ON THE WALLS--(Iliad, iii. 146.)
Fair Helen to the Scaean portals came,
Where sat the elders, peers of Priamus,
Thymoetas, Hiketaon, Panthous,
And many another of a noble name,
Famed warriors, now in council more of fame.
Always above the gates, in converse thus
They chattered like cicalas garrulous;
Who marking Helen, swore "it is no shame
That armed Achaean knights, and Ilian men
For such a woman's sake should suffer long.
Fair as a deathless goddess seemeth she.
Nay, but aboard the red-prowed ships again
Home let her pass in peace, not working wrong
To us, and children's children yet to be."
THE ISLES OF THE BLESSED--(Pindar, Fr., 106, 107 (95): B. 4, 129-
130, 109 (97): B. 4, 132)
Now the light of the sun, in the night of the Earth, on the souls
of the True
Shines, and their city is girt with the meadow where reigneth the
rose;
And deep is the shade of the woods, and the wind that flits o'er
them and through
Sings of the sea, and is sweet from the isles where the
frankincense blows:
Green is their garden and orchard, with rare fruits golden it
glows,
And the souls of the Blessed are glad in the pleasures on Earth
that they knew,
And in chariots these have delight, and in dice and in minstrelsy
those,
And the savour of sacrifice clings to the altars and rises anew.
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