Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/245

TO DR. WALDSTEIN The lettered Roman aired his Greek,

Drew forth his scrolls from shelf and panel,—

(So Gray and Walpole knew to speak,

To read, their French brought over Channel);

Untomb those sealed armaria! Let

Your hand among their riches wander,

Until, half-dazed, your eyes are set

Upon—some play of great Menander!

Byzantium's Christian priests, they say,

With those rare jestings heaped the pyre;

Lest ruthless, grim Vesuvius may

Restore them to the world's desire.

The mask, the marble and the bronze,

The eagle from Bellona's eyrie,—

Light trophies these to him who cons,

First of his time, those lost papyri,—

Whose sight takes in at last complete

The lines to Sappho's smile and tresses

Alcæus wrote—yet made retreat

In awe, as he himself confesses,—

Or ... thought to wake the pulse's thrill!...

Finds but one ode, all fire and air,

By Her,—one hymn diviner still

Than that ecstatic Lesbian prayer.

There's Pindar,—haply from the mound

You'll lift a six-and-fortieth pæan,

Or, blest indeed, disclose thrice-crowned—

Ye stars!—a trilogue Sophoclean;

Yet his, be sure, the loftiest meed

Whose spell shall split the Earth with wonder,

And bid us see Prometheus Freed,

That vanished Titan, loom from under.

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