| |
| THE WORLD’S great age begins anew, | |
| The golden years return, | |
| The earth doth like a snake renew | |
| Her winter weeds outworn: | |
| Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam | 5 |
| Like wrecks of a dissolving dream. | |
| |
| A brighter Hellas rears its mountains | |
| From waves serener far; | |
| A new Peneus rolls his fountains | |
| Against the morning star; | 10 |
| Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep | |
| Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep. | |
| |
| A loftier Argo cleaves the main, | |
| Fraught with a later prize; | |
| Another Orpheus sings again, | 15 |
| And loves, and weeps, and dies; | |
| A new Ulysses leaves once more | |
| Calypso for his native shore. | |
| |
| O write no more the tale of Troy, | |
| If earth Death’s scroll must be— | 20 |
| Nor mix with Laian rage the joy | |
| Which dawns upon the free, | |
| Although a subtler Sphinx renew | |
| Riddles of death Thebes never knew. | |
| |
| Another Athens shall arise, | 25 |
| And to remoter time | |
| Bequeath, like sunset to the skies, | |
| The splendour of its prime; | |
| And leave, if naught so bright may live, | |
| All earth can take or Heaven can give. | 30 |
| |
| Saturn and Love their long repose | |
| Shall burst, more bright and good | |
| Than all who fell, than One who rose, | |
| Than many unsubdued: | |
| Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers, | 35 |
| But votive tears and symbol flowers. | |
| |
| O cease! must hate and death return? | |
| Cease! must men kill and die? | |
| Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn | |
| Of bitter prophecy! | 40 |
| The world is weary of the past— | |
| O might it die or rest at last! | |
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