Henry Alford

Fragment Of A Proposed Drama 1832. Alcibiades Loquitur.

--Like a great river, toward the rising sun Broad Hellespont is flowing: far beyond, Over a land of never--dying names, Tower the brows of Ida. I can see The white waves chase each other on the deep, Between our Chersonese and Vulcan's isle; And there, where the azure level of the sea Flush meets the laughing blue, full many a league My thought sails daily till above the waves Gray headlands rise, and Acro--Sunium's fane Traces its glittering shafts upon the sky. O A thens--O my mother--couldst thou now Make peace in my torn bosom: couldst thou now Receive thy son, as thou receivedst him, With thronging ports and humming populace,-- Could I but now be standing as I stood Upon the sacred way, where grateful passed The holy pomp beneath my guarding hand! --But why thus weak? Is it that all is lost? May not the tumult of wild battle yet Be poured around me? may not yet again The horse wave dash about the ploughing prow, And subject cities