Fragments Written For Hellas.

1.     Fairest of the Destinies,     Disarray thy dazzling eyes:     Keener far thy lightnings are     Than the winged [bolts] thou bearest,     And the smile thou wearest     Wraps thee as a star     Is wrapped in light.     2.     Could Arethuse to her forsaken urn     From Alpheus and the bitter Doris run,     Or could the morning shafts of purest light     Again into the quivers of the Sun     Be gathered - could one thought from its wild flight     Return into the temple of the brain     Without a change, without a stain, -     Could aught that is, ever again     Be what it once has ceased to be,     Greece might again be free!     3.     A star has fallen upon the earth     Mid the benighted nations,     A quenchless atom of immortal light,     A living spark of Night,     A cresset shaken from the constellations.     Swifter than the thunder fell     To the heart of Earth, the well     Where its pulses flow and beat,     And unextinct in that cold source     Burns, and on ... course     Guides the sphere which is its prison,     Like an angelic spirit pent     In a form of mortal birth,     Till, as a spirit half-arisen     Shatters its charnel, it has rent,     In the rapture of its mirth,     The thin and painted garment of the Earth,     Ruining its chaos - a fierce breath     Consuming all its forms of living death.