Colonus' Praise

(From ‘Oedipus at Colonus’)

Chorus. Come praise Colonus’ horses, and come praise
    The wine-dark of the wood’s intricacies,
    The nightingale that deafens daylight there,
    If daylight ever visit where,
    Unvisited by tempest or by sun,
    Immortal ladies tread the ground
    Dizzy with harmonious sound,
    Semele’s lad a gay companion.
    And yonder in the gymnasts’ garden thrives
    The self-sown, self-begotten shape that gives
    Athenian intellect its mastery,
    Even the grey-leaved olive-tree
    Miracle-bred out of the living stone;
    Nor accident of peace nor war
    Shall wither that old marvel, for
    The great grey-eyed Athena stares thereon.
    Who comes into this country, and has come
    Where golden crocus and narcissus bloom,
    Where the Great Mother, mourning for her daughter
    And beauty-drunken by the water
    Glittering among grey-leaved olive-trees,
    Has plucked a flower and sung her loss;
    Who finds abounding Cephisus
    Has found the loveliest spectacle there is.
    Because this country has a pious mind
    And so remembers that when all mankind
    But trod the road, or splashed about the shore,
    Poseidon gave it bit and oar,
    Every Colonus lad or lass discourses
    Of that oar and of that bit;
    Summer and winter, day and night,
    Of horses and horses of the sea, white horses.

  By PanEris using Melati.

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