Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/351

A SEA-CHANGE, AT KELP ROCK Sandalled, coiffed, and white-robed maidens,

Chanting in their carven boats;

List! and hear anon the cadence

Of their virginal fresh notes.

You shall hear the choric hymnos,

Or some clear prosodion

Known to Delos, Naxos, Lemnos,

Isles beneath the eastern sun.

'T is the famed Æolian quire

Bearing Pallas flowers and fruit—

Some with white hands touch the lyre,

Some with red lips kiss the flute;

You shall see the vestured priestess,

Violet-crowned, her chalice swing,

Ere yon cerylus has ceased his

Swirl upon "the sea-blue wing."

In the great Panathenæa

Climbing marble porch and stair,

Soon before the statued Dea

Votive baskets they shall bear,

Sacred palm, and fragrant censer,

Wine-cups—

But what vapor hoar,

What cloud-curtain dense, and denser,

Looms between them and the shore?

Off, thou Norseland Terror, clouding

Hellas with the jealous wraith

Which, the gods of old enshrouding,

Froze their hearts, the poet saith!

Vain the cry: from yon abysm

Now the fog-horn's woeful blast—

Stern New England's exorcism!—

Ends my vision of the past.

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