Troy

Field of old Troy, which song hath crowned with fame,
Age after age still kindling at your name,
Though billowy time hath swept, like sand, away
Strong wall and fortress, shrine and column gray,
And scarce a stone points out where Ilion rose,
Pride of her sons and terror of her foes,
Doth not a living spirit breathe around,
Haunt every grove, and speak from every mound?
Is it a fancy? — walks not Venus still
On yon bright cloud, o'er Ida's palmy hill?
Guards not the Dardan king his old domain?
Glide not the ghosts of heroes o'er the plain?

Oh! yes, this lone and silent desert teems
With radiant forms, the shades of deathless dreams:
In vain oblivious ages bring their night,
The stars of glory shed unfading light.
Where'er we move, or cast the thoughtful eye,
Some memory starts, some form is sweeping by.
Fancy's bright pictures fill the horizon's bound,
War reigns again and pours his terrors round.
The Grecian ships, like white swans, crowd the bay,
And moony bucklers flash a baleful ray.
Circling doomed Troy, upsprings a wood of spears,
Their points like stars just fallen from their spheres.
Loud rise the shouts, and thrills the trumpet's blast,
And brazen chariots fly like whirlwinds past.
Here Hector falls at Scaea's blood-stained gate,
And there Achilles vents his rage and hate,
Dragging, unmindful of his own dark doom,
His slaughtered foe around Patroclus' tomb.
Fair Helen shines with all too fatal charms,
Weeps her lost lord and woos him to her arms.
High on the wall white-bearded Priam stands,
Curses the Greek, and spreads to heaven his hands;
And as o'er Troy the rushing flames arise,
Gild Helle's wave and light the midnight skies,
Shrieks of despair to Ida's mountains swell,
And Freedom's trumpet sounds her last farewell.