Long after the twilight thickened immediately about us, the lofty Acropolis stood up, bathed in a glow of light from the lingering sunset. I turned back to gaze upon it with an enthusiasm I had thought laid on the shelf with my half-forgotten classics. The intrinsic beauty of the ruins of Greece, the loneliness of their situation, and the divine climate in which, to use Byron’s expression, they are “buried,” invest them with an interest which surrounds no other antiquities in the world, I rode on, repeating to myself Milton’s beautiful description:—
“Look! on the Ægæan a city stands
Built nobly; pure the air and light the soil:
Athens—the eye of Greece, mother of arts
And eloquence; native to famous wits,
Or hospitable, in her sweet recess
City or suburban, studious walks or shades.
See, there the olive groves of Academe,
Plato’s retirement, where the attic bird
Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long.