VISIONS

I saw a vision of beauty.

My eyes looked through the mists of ages,

Back to the glorious years when Beauty itself was God.

And I saw the waves of the blue AEgean,

Turquoise, sapphire, jacinth and amethyst mingled,

And I heard the singing of the water,

As of playing of distant pipes

By slender shepherd lads among the hills.

Then I turned away from the shore

And I saw the pediment of a great temple

Standing white against the sky,

And beneath the pediment rows of marble columns

Like giant trees in a forest of frozen beauty.

Statues gleamed amid the dark foliage of cypress and olive trees,

Statues of gods and goddesses, youths and maidens,

Horses of ruddy bronze and chariots of beaten brass.

My feet trod the steps of the marble stairway,

And I went a worshipper to the great temple,

Whose burnished doors stood wide ajar

Gleaming like the portal of a dream city;

I lifted my arms in adoration,

And my soul drank its fill

From the pure Greek fountain-head of beauty.