Colonos

Colonos! can it be that thou hast still 
Thy laurel and thine olives and thy vine? 
Do thy close-feather’d nightingales yet trill 
Their warbles of thick-sobbing song divine? 
Does the gold sheen of the crocus o’er thee shine
And dew-fed clusters of the daffodil, 
And round thy flowery knots Cephisus twine, 
Aye oozing up with many a bubbling rill? 
Oh, might I stand beside thy leafy knoll, 
In sight of the far-off city-towers, and see
The faithful-hearted pure Antigone 
Toward the dread precinct, leading sad and slow 
That awful temple of a kingly soul, 
Lifted to heaven by unexampled woe