Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


MARATHON by CLINTON SCOLLARD

First Line: AND THIS IS MARATHON - THIS SWEEP OF PLAIN
Last Line: LYING AT PEACE BENEATH THE ATTIC AIR.

AND this is Marathon! -- this sweep of plain
Austere and treeless! yet't is glorious ground,
Albeit naught save one unfeatured mound
Stands monument to the undaunted slain;
But at the sight the old heroic strain
Moves in the breast as at some martial sound;
Again the victor Greeks are glory-crowned,
The Persian hordes back-driven to the main!

E'en gnawing Time, with his insatiate greed,
Wears not the splendor of some names away,
But, star-like, they endure, undimmed and fair;
And so with Marathon, though the spot to-day
Is but a wilderness of grass and reed
Lying at peace beneath the Attic air.



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