Why leanest thou on idle spear?
Why is thy dreadful helmet bent
Heavy upon thy breast, O virgin?
What sorrow is so great, O thought,

As to touch thee? Are there no more
Of thunder-bearing enemies
To yield thee trophies new? No pomp
Athenian to guide thy ship

On to the sacred Rock? I see
Some pain holds Pallas fixed upon
A gravestone. Some great blow moves her:

Is it thy sacred city's loss,
Or seest thou all Greece—alas—
Of now and yesterday entombed?

1896.

[THE HUNTRESS RELIEF]

Whither so light of garb and swift of foot, O Huntress?
Is it the sacred gifts of pure Hippolytus
That make thee leave Arcadia's forest land behind,
O shelter of the pure, and slayer of the wild?

Wild lily of virginity raised on the fields
Olympian, O mountain Queen of gleaming bow,
I envy him who in a careless hour did face
Thy beauty's lightning with thy heartless vengefulness.

And yet white like the morn, thou openest in secret
Thy lips thrice fragrant with divine ambrosia
And sayest: "Latona's deathless grace has moulded me

Under the sacred tree upon Ortygia;
But now once more upon the noble stone, the new
Maker has moulded me with a new deathlessness."

1895.

[A FATHER'S SONG]

O first-born pride and joy of my own home,
I still remember thy coming's sacred day:
The early dawn was breaking as from pearls,
Whitening the sky that spread star-spangled still;

Thou wert not like the fresh and budding rose
In its green mother's clasp before it opens;
Thou camest like a victim pitiful
And feeble cast by a rude hand among us.

And as if thou wert seeking help, thy wail
Rose sadder than the sound of a death knell;
And thus the last of thy own mother's groans

Was mingled with thy first lament. Life's great
Drama began. I watch it, and I feel
Within me Fear's and Pity's mystic wail!

1894.

[TO THE POET L. MAVILES][20]

Thy soul is seeking tranquil paths
Alone; thou hatest barking mouths;
And yet thy country's love enflames thee,
O maker of the noble sonnet.

In the white alabaster vase
Filled with pure native earth, a flower
Of dream that only few can see
Trembles and scatters fragrances.

Thy verse, the vase; thy mind, the flower.
But a hand broke the vase, and now
The azure beauty of the flower

Has found a mate in the powder's smoke
Upon Crete's Isle, the blue sea's crown,
Mother of bards and tyrant slayers.

1896.

[IMAGINATION]

Time's spider lurks and lies in wait;
And on its poisoned claws, the beast
All watchful glides, assails, and grasps
The ruin. O thrice-holy beauties!

In vain all props and wisdom's arts!
In vain a tribe of sages seek
To save it! Time's remaining crumbs
Are scattered far and melt like frost.

Then from the lofty land of Thought,
Imagination came, a goddess
Among the gods, and made again,

Even where until now the ruin
Crumbled, what only its hands can make—
Deathless the first-born Parthenon.

1896.

[MAKARIA'S DEATH]