Modern Athens

IF Fate, though jealous of the second birth

Of names in history raised to high degree,

Permits that Athens yet once more shall be,

Let her be placed as suits the thought and worth

Of those who, during long oppression’s dearth,

Went out from Hydra and Ipsara free,

Making their homestead of the chainless sea,

And hardly touching their enslavéd earth.

So on the shore, in sight of Salamis,

On the Piræan and Phalerian bays,

With no harsh contrast of what was and is,

Let Athens rise; while in the distance stands,

Like something hardly raised by human hands,

The awful skeleton of ancient days!