To B.R. Haydon, with a Sonnet Written on Seeing the Elgin Marbles
Haydon! forgive me that I cannot speak
Definitively on these mighty things;
Forgive me that I have not Eagle's wings —
That what I want I know not where to seek:
And think that I would not be over-meek
In rolling out up-followed thunderings,
Even to the steep of Heliconian springs,
Were I of ample strength for such a freak —
Think too, that all those numbers should be thine;
Whose else? In this who touch thy vesture's hem?
For when men stared at what was most divine
With browless idiotism — o'erwise phlegm —
Thou hadst beheld the Hesperian shine
Of their star in the East, and gone to worship them.
Definitively on these mighty things;
Forgive me that I have not Eagle's wings —
That what I want I know not where to seek:
And think that I would not be over-meek
In rolling out up-followed thunderings,
Even to the steep of Heliconian springs,
Were I of ample strength for such a freak —
Think too, that all those numbers should be thine;
Whose else? In this who touch thy vesture's hem?
For when men stared at what was most divine
With browless idiotism — o'erwise phlegm —
Thou hadst beheld the Hesperian shine
Of their star in the East, and gone to worship them.
Translation:
Language:
Reviews
No reviews yet.