Felicia Hemans

“ Surviving power, and fame, and freedom flown,
They still remain'd, still tranquilly sublime!
Till mortal hands the heavenly conclave marr'd.
Th' Olympian groups have sunk, and are forgot;
Not e'en their dust could weeping Athens guard—
—But these were destined to a nobler lot!
And they have borne, to light another land,
The quenchless ray that soon shall gloriously expand.
⁠XCVIII.
Phidias! supreme in thought! what hand but thine,
In human works thus blending earth and heaven,
O'er nature's truth hath shed that grace divine,
To mortal form immortal grandeur given? ”

“ And nations rising to their fame afar,
Still to thy model turn, as seamen to their star.
⁠LXXXV.
Glory to those whose relics thus arrest
The gaze of ages! Glory to the free!
For they, they only, could have thus imprest
Their mighty image on the years to be!
Empires and cities in oblivion lie,
Grandeur may vanish, conquest be forgot:—
To leave on earth renown that cannot die,
Of high-soul'd genius is th' unrivall'd lot.
Honour to thee, O Athens! thou hast shewn
What mortals may attain, and seized the palm alone.
⁠LXXXVI.
Oh! ”

“ O'er whose young ardors, had thy smile but shone,
Their soaring flight had left a world behind!
And many a gifted hand, that might have wrought
To Grecian excellence the breathing stone,
Or each pure grace of Raphael's pencil caught,
Leaving no record of its power, is gone!
While thou hast fondly sought, on distant coast,
Gems far less rich than those, thus precious, and thus lost.
⁠CI.
Yet rise, O Land in all but Art alone,
Bid the sole wreath that is not thine be won!
Fame dwells around thee—Genius is thine own ”

“ Years, that have changed thy river's classic name,7 [7]
Have left thee still in savage pomp sublime;
And from thine Alpine clefts, and marble caves,
In living lustre still break forth the fountain-waves
⁠XXIV.
Beneath thy mountain battlements and towers,
Where the rich arbute's coral berries glow,8 [8]
Or midst th' exuberance of thy forest bowers,
Casting deep shadows o'er the current's flow,
Oft shall the pilgrim pause, in lone recess,
As rock and stream some glancing light have caught,
And gaze, till Nature's mighty forms impress
His soul with deep sublimity of thought ”

“ The bard's lone haunts, the warrior's combat-plains,
And the wild-rose yet lives to breathe and bloom,
Round Doric Pæstum's solitary fanes.1 [1]
But most, fair Greece! on thy majestic shore,
He feels the fervors of his spirit rise;
Thou birth-place of the Muse! whose voice, of yore,
Breathed in thy groves immortal harmonies;
And lingers still around the well-known coast,
Murmuring a wild farewell to fame and freedom lost. ”

“ What power hath fate to soil the garlands of the tomb?
⁠LXXIX.
Praise to the valiant dead! for them doth art
Exhaust her skill, their triumphs bodying forth;
Theirs are enshrined names, and every heart
Shall bear the blazon'd impress of their worth.
Bright on the dreams of youth their fame shall rise,
Their fields of fight shall epic song record,
And when the voice of battle rends the skies,
Their name shall be their country's rallying word!
While fane and column rise august to tell
How Athens honours those for her who proudly fell.
⁠LXXX.
City of Theseus! ”

“ Where patriarchs reign'd of old, in pastoral repose.
⁠XII.
Where Syria's mountains rise, or Yemen's groves,
Or Tigris rolls his genii-haunted wave,
Life to his eye, as wearily it roves,
Wears but two forms—the tyrant and the slave!
There the fierce Arab leads his daring horde,
Where sweeps the sand-storm o'er the burning wild,
There stern Oppression waves the wasting sword,
O'er plains that smile, as ancient Eden smiled;
And the vale's bosom, and the desert's gloom,
Yield to the injured there no shelter save the tomb.
⁠XIII.
But thou, fair world! ”

“ In all her pomp thy city, Theseus! towers:
Within, around, the light of glory dwells
On art's fair fabrics, wisdom's holy bowers.
There marble fanes in finish'd grace ascend,
The pencil's world of life and beauty glows;
Shrines, pillars, porticoes, in grandeur blend,
Rich with the trophies of barbaric foes;
And groves of platane wave, in verdant pride,
The sage's blest retreats, by calm Ilissus' tide. ”

“ Nor mark how changed the realms that saw your glory's reign.
⁠XLV.
Lo, where th' Albanian spreads his despot sway
O'er Thessaly's rich vales and glowing plains,
Whose sons in sullen abjectness obey,
Nor lift the hand indignant at its chains:
Oh! doth the land that gave Achilles birth,
And many a chief of old illustrious line,
Yield not one spirit of unconquer'd worth,
To kindle those that now in bondage pine?
No! on its mountain-air is slavery's breath,
And terror chills the hearts whose utter'd plaints were death ”

“ For thine were spirits cast in other mould
Than all beside—and proved by ruder test;
They stood alone—the proud, the firm, the bold,
With the same seal indelibly imprest.
Theirs were no bright varieties of mind,
One image stamp'd the rough, colossal race,
In rugged grandeur frowning o'er mankind,
Stern, and disdainful of each milder grace.
As to the sky some mighty rock may tower,
Whose front can brave the storm, but will not rear the flower.
⁠LV.
Such were thy sons—their life a battle day! ”

“ On Corinth's cliff what sunset hues may sleep,
Or, at that placid hour, how calm th' Egean deep!
⁠XX.
What scenes, what sunbeams, are to him like thine?
(The all of thine no tyrant could destroy!)
E'en to the stranger's roving eye they shine,
Soft as a vision of remembered joy.
And he who comes, the pilgrim of a day,
A passing wanderer o'er each Attic hill,
Sighs as his footsteps turn from thy decay,
To laughing climes, where all is splendour still;
And views with fond regret thy lessening shore,
As he would watch a star that sets to rise no more.
⁠XXI.
Realm of sad beauty! ”

“ Proclaims an empire's doom in every note;
Tambour and trumpet swell the clash of steel,
Round spire and dome the clouds of battle float;
From camp and wave rush on the crescent's host,
And the Seven Towers16 [16] are scaled, and all is won and lost.
⁠XXXIX.
Then, Greece! ”

“ What British Angelo may rise to fame.
"Let us suppose a young man at this time in London, endowed with powers such as enabled Michael Angelo to advance the arts, as he did, by the aid of one mutilated specimen of Grecian excellence in sculpture; to what an eminence might not such a genius carry art, by the opportunity of studying those sculptures in the aggregate, which adorned the temple of Minerva at Athens?"—West's Second Letter to Lord Elgin. ”

“ The victor's banner waves, exulting o'er its fall.
⁠XXXII.
Still, where that column of the mosque aspires,
Landmark of slavery, towering o'er the waste,
There Science droops, the Muses hush their lyres,
And o'er the blooms of fancy and of taste
Spreads the chill blight—as in that orient isle,
Where the dark upas taints the gale around,11 [11]
Within its precincts not a flower may smile,
Nor dew nor sunshine fertilize the ground;
Nor wild birds' music float on zephyr's breath,
But all is silence round, and solitude, and death. ”

“ Bright, as of old, the sunbeams o'er thee sleep
In all their beauty still—and thine is gone!
Empires have sunk since thou wert first revered,
And varying rites have sanctified thy shrine.
The dust is round thee of the race that rear'd
Thy walls; and thou—their fate must soon be thine! ”

“ Wilt thou receive the wanderer to thine arms,4 [4]
The lost descendant of the immortal brave?
Amidst the wild magnificence of shades
That o'er thy floods their twilight-grandeur cast,
In the green depth of thine untrodden glades,
Shall he not rear his bower of peace at last?
Yes! thou hast many a lone, majestic scene,
Shrined in primæval woods, where despot ne'er hath been. ”

“ Where soft the sunbeams play, the zephyrs blow,
'Tis hard to deem that misery can be nigh;
Where the clear heavens in blue transparence glow,
Life should be calm and cloudless as the sky;
—Yet o'er the low, dark dwellings of the dead,
Verdure and flowers in summer-bloom may smile,
And ivy-boughs their graceful drapery spread
In green luxuriance o'er the ruined pile ”

“ Minerva's veil is rent36 [36] —her image gone,
Silent the sage's bower—the warrior's tomb o'erthrown.
⁠LXXXII.
Yet in decay thine exquisite remains
Wondering we view, and silently revere,
As traces left on earth's forsaken plains
By vanish'd beings of a nobler sphere!
Not all the old magnificence of Rome,
All that dominion there hath left to time,
Proud Coliseum, or commanding dome,
Triumphal arch, or obelisk sublime,
Can bid such reverence o'er the spirit steal,
As aught by thee imprest with beauty's plastic seal. ”

“ And o'er the blasted tree, the withered ground,
Despair's wild nightshade spread, and darkly flourish round?
⁠XXX.
So may'st thou gaze, in sad and awe-struck thought,
On the deep fall of that yet lovely clime:
Such there the ruin Time and Fate have wrought,
So changed the bright, the splendid, the sublime!
There the proud monuments of Valour's name,
The mighty works Ambition piled on high,
The rich remains by Art bequeath'd to Fame—
Grace, beauty, grandeur, strength, and symmetry,
Blend in decay ”

“ All sorts of purple and white flowers were supposed by the Greeks to be acceptable to the dead, and used in adorning tombs; as amaranth, with which the Thessalians decorated the tomb of Achilles.—Potter's Antiquities of Greece, vol. ”

“ Call his rich blooms to life—be Thou their Sun!
So, should dark ages o'er thy glory sweep,
Should thine e'er be as now are Grecian plains,
Nations unborn shall track thine own blue deep,
To hail thy shore, to worship thy remains ”

“ Looking generally at the narrowness and abruptness of this mountain-channel (Tempe) and contrasting it with the course of the Peneus, through the plains of Thessaly, the imagination instantly recurs to the tradition that these plains were once covered with water, for which some convulsion of nature had subsequently opened this narrow passage. The term vale, in our language, is usually employed to describe scenery in which the predominant features are breadth, beauty, and repose. ”

“ Mr. West, after expressing his admiration of the horse's head in Lord Elgin's collection of Athenian sculpture, thus proceeds: "We feel the same when we view the young equestrian Athenians, and in observing them we are insensibly carried on with the impression, that they and their horses actually existed, as we see them, at the instant when they were converted into marble."—West's Second Letter to Lord Elgin.
↑ ⁠
Note 41, page 48, line 20.
And art hath won a world in models pure as thine. ”

“ And isles of flowers, bright-floating o'er the tide.
"La grace est toujours unie à la magnificence dans les scènes de la nature: et tandis que le courant du milieu entraîne vers la mer les cadavres des pins et des chênes, on voit sur les deux courant latéraux, remontes, le long des rivages des îles flottantes de Pistia & de Nénuphar, dont les roses jaunes s'élèvent comme de petits papillons."—Description of the banks of the Mississippi, Chateaubriand's "Atala." ”

“ Flaxman thinks that sculpture has very greatly improved within these last twenty years, and that his opinion is not singular, because works of such prime importance as the Elgin marbles could not remain in any country without a consequent improvement of the public taste, and the talents of the artist.—See the Evidence given in reply to interrogatories from the Committee on the Elgin Marbles. ”

“ And nymph-like forms, and wild melodious lays,
Revive the sylvan scenes of old romance;
Yet brooding fear and dark suspicion dwell,
'Midst Pan's deserted haunts, by fountain, cave, and dell.
⁠LXX.
But thou, fair Attica! ”

“ The ruins of Sparta, near the modern town of Mistra, are very inconsiderable, and only sufficient to mark the site of the ancient city. The scenery around them is described by travellers as very striking. ”

“ There the rose laurels still in beauty wave.
"In the Eurotas I observed abundance of those famous reeds which were known in the earliest ages, and all the rivers and marshes of Greece are replete with rose-laurels, while the springs and rivulets are covered with lilies, tuberoses, hyacinths, and narcissus orientalis."—Pouqueville's Travels in the Morea.
↑ ⁠
Note 27, page 31, line 5.
The suppliant's hand its holy branches bore.
It was usual for suppliants to carry an olive-branch bound with wool.
↑ ⁠
Note 28, page 31 , line 10.
Its fruitful groves arise, revered and hallowed still. ”

“ The peplus was then carried to the Parthenon, and consecrated to Minerva.—See Chandler's Travels, Stuart's Athens, &c.
↑ ⁠
Note 37, page 42, line 13.
Though with rich gold and massy sculpture graced.
The gilding amidst the ruins of Persepolis is still, according to Winckelmann, in high preservation.
↑ ⁠
Note 38, page 46, line 18.
There in each wreck imperishably glows.
"In the most broken fragment the same great principle of life can be proved to exist, as in the most perfect figure," is one of the observations of Mr. Haydon on the Elgin Marbles. ”