II
Greece lives, but Greece no more!
Its ashes breed
The undying seed
Blown westward till, in Rome's imperial towers,
Athens reflowers;
Still westward—lo, a veiled and virgin shore!
III
Say not, "Greece is no more."
Through the clear morn
On light winds borne
Her white-winged soul sinks on the New World's breast.
Ah! happy West—
Greece flowers anew, and all her temples soar!
IV
One bright hour, then no more
Shall to the skies
These columns rise.
But though art's flower shall fade, again the seed
Onward shall speed,
Quickening the land from lake to ocean's roar.
V
Art lives, though Greece may never
From the ancient mold
As once of old
Exhale to heaven the inimitable bloom;
Yet from that tomb
Beauty walks forth to light the world forever!
Richard Watson Gilder.
On February 2, 1894, the famous old corvette, Kearsarge, which destroyed the Confederate cruiser Alabama, off Cherbourg, during the Civil War, was wrecked on Roncador reef in the Caribbean Sea.
THE KEARSARGE
[February 2, 1894]
In the gloomy ocean bed
Dwelt a formless thing, and said,
In the dim and countless eons long ago,
"I will build a stronghold high,
Ocean's power to defy,
And the pride of haughty man to lay low."
Crept the minutes for the sad,
Sped the cycles for the glad,
But the march of time was neither less nor more;
While the formless atom died,
Myriad millions by its side,
And above them slowly lifted Roncador.