The Madisonian. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1837-1845, 1839-01-15


While loud the seamen cheered:
And as the sunbeam leil the height
Our Flag was strickland il was night.
A night in Greece! Oh God that hour
feel my bosom thrill,
As when | saw the nightcloud lower
On old Hymethus' hill,
While bright Panassus gleam'd afar,
And DER her peeped the Evening star.
The Greek--he comes-the joyful sound
With dirk and jewell'd sword, .
And while his dark eye flashes round
He proudly steps on board
He speaks--his gloomy doubts are DER,
And loud our welcome, rings the shore.
Welcome to Greece-that Greece, my friends,
That in her shadow sleeps,
Up to the skies her wall ascends,
And far her daughter weaps -"
Welcome to Greece, her ruined piles,
Her mainland shores and sunny isles.
The Moon in beauty leaves the sea &c.,.
And sheds her silver ray;
And old Anchesmus silently
Makes bare his forehead grey;
While on his summit towering stands
A temple rear'd by Pagan hands. !.
IT'S dawn, and many an anxious eye
Explores the dusky strand,
The Kiak floats in silence by,
The breaker rings at hand;
And far, in purple mountains dell
Is heard the wild dogs's savage yell.
And, where is Athens--where the Queen
That mid her ruin lies2
Behold, there's nought but groves of green
To meet my longing eyes.
Look higher up!-Ay, there she is
And there the proud Acropolis ....
The vast Cecropian Citadel
The hill with temples crown'd-
Where organs note or peal OF bell
Meier gave their solemn sound;
Looks on Minerals city fair,
And sits in ruind grandeur there.
Amid the skies her temples CLEAN ~.
AT eve or mornings prime,
As lovely as the Poets dream,
And old as early time; .....
And bright their marble columns glow
As Helcon's eternal snow.
Thy temple Theseus, still remains,
Its beauty rarely known,
Its pillars white with purple veins,
The beautiful of stone
Athenas founder reard thy head
TO live when modern works are dead
The ruin'd town now hugs the hill,
And marble fragments lie .....
Where Turkish power with bar'brous will
Had babe the sculpture die.
And Gothic and Venitian bands
Have Stand the walls with impious hands.
And there came up to yonder hill
The Areopagi
To speak Eternal Justices will
And bid the guilty die;
When lowered on yonder stored sod,
The altar of the Unknown God.
And on those seats of velvet green
Athena's fair recined,
And, there the sage of thoughtful mien
Whose temple was the mind;
And there Demosthenes was heard,
While wisdom stoop'd to catch the word.
And now Ilissus sedgy stream
Is almost swallowed up,
Where of the sage went forth TO dream
Before he drained the cup,
And felt the hemlock's subtle power
In yonder dark green olive bower.
And now, a single column rears
Its stately capital,
To speak the mighty lapse OF years
Since Hadrian's temples fall;
And there beneath its quiet shade
The wild Albanias youth is laid.
For miles, the.hils and plains are strown
With many temples site,
And while wandered there alone
Amid the shades of night,
Deep caverns yawned around in gloom,
AAd every football prest tomb.
But who, thy glories lost, shall sing;
Or, name thy worthless bright?
'Twould tire the boldest Fancy's wing,
And waste the Summers light.
Thy columns stand on hill and shore,
And speak of wonders now no more
I've seen the Greek at Evening, stand
Upon his mountain height,
And while he Stretched his suppiant hand
Amid the rosy light,
I've breath'd prayer on land and sea,
That Greece, "the liuing Greece" might be.
.. J. L. ID.
Washington, January, 1889.
The third election in Parmenters Congressional Di,