Page:Zinzendorff and Other Poems.pdf/244

    And thou, meek martyr to the hemlock draught,
    Whose fearless voice for truth and virtue strove,
    Whose stainless life, and death serene, have taught
    The Christian world to wonder and to love,—
    Come forth, with Plato, to thy hallow'd grove
    And bring that golden chain by Time unriven,
    Which round this pendent universe ye wove,
    For still our homage to your lore is given,
And your pure wisdom priz'd, next to the page of Heaven.

    Still gathering round, high shades of glorious birth
    Do throng the scene. Hath aught disturb'd their rest?
    Why brings Philosophy her idols forth
    With pensive brow, in solemn silence drest?
    And see he comes, who o'er the sophist's crest
    Did pour the simple element of light,
    Reduce the complex thought to reason's test,
    And stand severe in intellectual might,—
Undated, undeceiv'd, the peerless Stagyrite.

    Those demi-gods of Greece! How sad they rove
    Where temple-crown'd, the Acropolis aspires,
    Or green Hymeltus rears her honied grove,
    Or glows the Parthenon 'neath sunset fires,
    Or where the olive, ere its prime, expires
    By Moslem hatred scath'd. Methinks they seem
    Westward to gaze, with unreveal'd desires,
    Whether they roam by pure Ilyssus' stream,
Or haunt with troubled step the shades of Academe.

    Seek ye the West?—that land of noteless birth,
    That when proud Athens rul'd with regal sway
    All climes and kindreds of the awe-struck earth,
    Still in its cold, mysterious cradle lay,