CRUCE AND CORONA.
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O Greece! thou wondrous, Heaven-gifted land,Where art and song arose so grandly high;Thou birthplace of philosophy, all hail!Thy noble thinkers of the elder days,Who swayed the human mind with sceptered pow'r,Still wield a sceptered pow'r o'er minds to-day,To perish not when earth shall be no more!
Ah! if those heathen minds could now beholdHow all their longing for the infinite,Their aspirations for the highest good,Have found their answer in the world's to-day,Through Christianity the Heaven-sentTo earth descending, how would they rejoice,How wonder, too, at those who turn aside,While o'er their way truth's dazzling splendor streams,To seek the darkness rather than the light!
And now Corona and her parents roamThe vales of Greece; ascend its mountain heights.Olympus, with its coronet of snow,With lofty grandeur rises to their view.They stand on Marathon's mount-circled plain,—That plain—when even centuries had passedSince on the victors and the vanquished gleamedThe sunset of its memorable day—Believed of spectral warriors the haunt,
