HAIL, Nature's utmost boast! unrivalled Greece! My fairest reign! where every power benign Conspired to blow the flower of human kind, And lavished all that genius can inspire. Cear, sunny climates by the breezy main, Ionian or AEgean, tempered kind: Light, airy soils: a country rich, and gay Broke into hills with balmy odors crowned, And, bright with purple harvest, joyous vales: Mountains, and streams, where verse spontaneous flowed; Whence deemed by wondering men the seat of gods, And still the mountains and the streams of song. All that boon Nature could luxuriant pour Of high materials, and my restless arts Frame into finished life. How many states, And clustering towns, and monuments of fame, And scenes of glorious deeds, in little bounds? From the rough tract of bending mountains, beat By Adria's here, there by AEgean waves; To where the deep adorning Cyclade Isles In shining prospect rise, and on the shore Of farthest Crete resounds the Libyan main. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...UPON HIS SPANIEL [SPANIELL] TRACIE by ROBERT HERRICK THE CLIFF SWALLOWS by DEBRA NYSTROM AMY WENTWORTH; FOR WILLIAM BRADFORD by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER TELLING THE BEES by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER SONG FOR DECORATION DAY by HELEN C. BACON ADMONITION by FREDERIKA BLACKNER |