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.