Read "Sunset on the Acropolis" by Edwina Stanton Babcock online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
If ever I have freed me of all time, / Let me so free me now, that I have brought me / Near to these hill-top temples, which have caught me / Up to their soaring heights and Vision wrought me / Of things serene, and stricken, and sublime.
Let me, the titled, spurious Christian, face / This solemn wistfulness of Pagan yearning -- / This aspiration of white columns, burning / With golden fires, their pillars deep inurning / The tragic, sunset beauty of the place.
Let me stand silent, under evening skies, / Watching this radiance grown cold and hoary; / In death-white, black-stained ruins, read the story / The Parthenon tells of ancient Grecian glory, / Reiterating beauty as it dies.
Let me stand silently and humbly, there, / Seeking that Unknown God Greeks apprehended; / That, as the temples fade, and day is ended, / My own hope with this ancient faith be blended, / And I be part of this eternal prayer!