California
by Thomas Lake Harris (1823-1906) |
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THE GRECIAN MUSE, to earth who bore
Her goblet filled
with wine of gold,
Dispersed the frown that Ages wore
Upon their foreheads grim and cold,
What time the lyric
thunders rolled.
O'er this new Eden of the West
The mightier Muse enkindles now:
Her joy-lyre fashions in
my breast,
And wreathes the song-crown for my brow,
Ere yet her loftier powers avow.
Though like Tithonus
old and gray,
I serve her mid the swords and shields;
Her being opens for my way,
And there I find Elysian
fields;
And there I dwell while Nature yields.
My
Dian of the sparkling West,
My lady of the silver bow!
Here, where the savage man made quest
For golden spoils
in earth that grow,
She leads the Golden Age below.
Beneath her feet the maiden May
Sits crowned with
roses where I sing.
My brows with frosted age are gray,
But all my being glows for spring:
A golden youth 't is
hers to bring.
So in her, for her, I abide,
And
taste the goblets of her bliss;
Upon the hills with
morning dyed,
All as a new acropolis,
Her shrine shall
yet arise, I wis.
And here shall greater Hellas burn,
Irradiant for the Solar Powers;
And men the love of
strife unlearn,
Tasting from lips that breathe of
flowers,
Made young by joys that live from ours. |
By Thomas Lake Harris (1823-1906)
Listed December 17, 2012 |
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