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| BLUE-EYED Athena! what a dream wert thou! | |
| O, what a glory hovered o’er thy shrine,— | |
| Thy hill, where darker error nestles, now! | |
| Yet art thou hallowed, though no more divine! | |
| The worship of all noblest hearts is thine,— | 5 |
| Though the dull Moslem haunts the sacred earth | |
| Where sprung the olive o’er its bower of vine, | |
| And watched above thine own Cecropia’s birth! | |
| Truth that should chase such dreams were surely little worth! | |
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| For, O, thou art the very purest thought | 10 |
| That fable e’er conceived! and on thy hill,— | |
| Thine own blue hill, where time and Turk have wrought | |
| In vain to break the spell that lingers still,— | |
| The heart that owns a better faith may kneel, | |
| Nor wrong his creed, while bending o’er the sod | 15 |
| Where gods, and men like gods in act and will, | |
| Are made immortal, by the wizard rod | |
| Of him whose every thought aspired to be a god! | |
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| Mount of the free, Olympus of the earth! | |
| Fair as a temple, lonely as a tomb! | 20 |
| Shall the dark robber rear his household hearth, | |
| Where fabled gods contended for a home! | |
| Those bright abstractions of a truth to come! | |
| No, by the gift Trazene’s monarch gave! | |
| No, by thy withered olive’s early bloom! | 25 |
| The sea-god’s offering calls upon thy brave, | |
| Mount, and replant the tree, once more, upon the Moslem’s grave! | |
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