1826

THE GREEK BOY

by William Cullen Bryant

THE GREEK BOY -

Gone are the glorious Greeks of old,

Glorious in mien and mind;

Their bones are mingled with the mould,

Their dust is on the wind;

The forms they hewed from living stone

Survive the waste of years, alone,

And, scattered with their ashes, show

What greatness perished long ago. -

Yet fresh the myrtles there; the springs

Gush brightly as of yore;

Flowers blossom from the dust of kings,

As many an age before.

There Nature moulds as nobly now,

As e'er of old, the human brow;

And copies still the martial form

That braved Plataea's battle-storm. -

Boy! thy first looks were taught to seek

Their heaven in Hellas' skies;

Her airs have tinged thy dusky cheek,

Her sunshine lit thine eyes;

Thine ears have drunk the woodland strains

Heard by old poets, and thy veins

Swell with the blood of demigods,

That slumber in thy country's sods. -

Now is thy nation free, though late;

Thy elder brethren broke-

Broke, ere thy spirit felt its weight-

The intolerable yoke.

And Greece, decayed, dethroned, doth see

Her youth-renewed in such as thee:

A shoot of that old vine that made

The nations silent in its shade. -