THE THEATRE AT ARGOS

Nettles and poppy mar each rock-hewn seat:

No poet crowned with olive deathlessly

Chants his glad song, nor clamorous Tragedy

Startles the air; green corn is waving sweet

Where once the Chorus danced to measures fleet;

Far to the East a purple stretch of sea,

The cliffs of gold that prisoned Danae;

And desecrated Argos at my feet.

No season now to mourn the days of old,

A nation’s shipwreck on the rocks of Time,

Or the dread storms of all-devouring Fate,

For now the peoples clamour at our gate,

The world is full of plague and sin and crime,

And God Himself is half-dethroned for Gold!

Argos, 1877