Read "Delphi" by Edwina Stanton Babcock online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Matrixed 'mid purple mountain steeps, / An ancient Grecian city sleeps. / Where rock-hewn fountains spill / Down scarlet-poppied hill; / Long time ago its temples fair / Rose, Doric-columned, on the air, / And voices told of riddles strange / That echoed down the mountain range; / And men and cities brought their all / To Delphi and the priestess' thrall. / While in the mountain-pass a pipe / Played on and on and on -- / A pipe played on.
Now up the aisles of olive-trees / Come wistful souls from over-seas, / From the Itean shore, / Past rose-hung cottage door, / And in the sacred fount they dip, / Or tell the lore with alien lip; / Or, dreaming, scan far snow-crowned heights, / Lit, as of old, with pagan lights. / While through the thyme, 'mid rock and pool, / The sheep-bells tinkle, water cool, -- / And in the mountain pass, a pipe / Plays on and on and on -- / A pipe plays on.