STATUES of fauns and wrestlers, Marble-chill nereids, Centaurs, bacchante, Aloof you look and lonely, Stripped exiles from those sapphire coasts Of long ago. Ye carven gods and symbols Of occult things and awful, Serapis, Pallas, Peitho, Speechless you stand and humbled, Without one kneeling suppliant Or votive lamp aglow. Where are your fluted temples Of Paestum or Girgenti, Altar and wreathed oxen, Veiled whirling priestesses And the vase-bearing worshipers Shouting Aioh? Instead, a rigid hallway Where, pagan, antique, wistful, You stand, stared at and jostled By mad new hurrying peoples With pinched and smileless visages Who do not know. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ON MY THIRTY-THIRD BIRTHDAY by GEORGE GORDON BYRON ULTIMA THULE: MY CATHEDRAL by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW JOHN BROWN OF OSAWATOMIE [OCTOBER 16, 1859] by EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN EYE-WITNESS by FREDERICK RIDGELY TORRENCE SONG: 1 by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD GREENES FUNERALLS: SONNET 1 by RICHARD BARNFIELD |