Hellas
THE world’s great age begins anew,The golden years return,The earth doth like a snake renewHer winter weeds outworn:Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam,Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.
A brighter Hellas rears its mountainsFrom waves serener far;A new Peneus rolls his fountainsAgainst the morning star.Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleepYoung Cyclads on a sunnier deep.
A loftier Argo cleaves the main,Fraught with a later prize;Another Orpheus sings again,And loves, and weeps, and dies.A new Ulysses leaves once moreCalypso for his native shore.
O write no more the tale of Troy,If earth Death’s scroll must be!Nor mix with Laian rage the joyWhich dawns upon the free:Although a subtler Sphinx renewRiddles of death Thebes never knew.
Another Athens shall arise,And to remoter timeBequeath, like sunset to the skies,The splendour of its prime;And leave, if nought so bright may live,All earth can take or Heaven can give.
O cease! must hate and death return?Cease! must men kill and die?Cease! drain not to its dregs the urnOf bitter prophecy.The world is weary of the past,O might it die or rest at last!