A Winter Swallow; With Other Verse (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1896. Excerpt: ... A WINTER SWALLOW Cleombrotus. Vain is their hope, who seek, in modern days, To breathe into the current civic life The glorious spirit of an ancient State, Single in faith, in honor absolute, And shining with the pristine light that draws From out the Golden Age. What shall avail, When evil grow the customs, and the laws Wax supple in the hands that fear them not Ah, Agis, thou my leader in Vain Hope Brave was the thought and generous the design, To win for Spartans their prime heritage, Equality in wealth, and place, and power. But all has come to naught, thro' trust betrayed--The people and ourselves alike betrayed, Leonidas restored, and thou and I Brief sanctuary craving from the Gods; Thou, underneath Athena's brazen roof (Like to the heaven that frowns upon thy cause) I, in Poseidon's temple; while each one, Bereft of other, Vengeance close pursues. Here a voice is heard in the inner temple, chanting delivery from the sea." Lord of the limitless waters, I was sinking down to my grave, When one of thy gentler daughters Reached out her hand, to save God of the savage surges, That beat up the azure plain, With a wind behind them that urges--A goad, and the shaken rein In their rage they were trampling me under, When Ino arose on their path--And their phalanx was broken asunder, And they were thrown back in their wrath. Then on a billow uplifted--Smooth as the flight of a dream, As the sea-weed the tide has drifted Up the still course of a stream, The silvery arms of a river Received me, and laid me to sleep Where the reeds in the sunlight quiver And faint comes the moan of the deep. chelonis has entered, and now slowly glides across the foreground of a painting representing the rescue of Ulysses. Cleombrotus. What moves across yon pictured curtain...