The White Lights by Edwin Arlington Robinson

(BROADWAY, 1906)

WHEN in from Delos came the gold

That held the dream of Pericles, / When first Athenian ears were told

The tumult of Euripides, / When men met Aristophanes,

Who fledged them with immortal quills -

Here, where the time knew none of these, / There were some islands and some hills.

When Rome went ravening to see

The sons of mothers end their days,

When Flaccus bade Leuconoë

To banish her chaldean ways, / When first the pearled, alembic phrase

Of Maro into music ran -

Here there was neither blame nor praise

For Rome, or for the Mantuan.

When Avon, like a faery floor, / Lay freighted, for the eyes of One, / With galleons laden long before

By moonlit wharves in Avalon -

Here, where the white lights have begun

To seethe a way for something fair, / No prophet knew, from what was done, / That there was triumph in the air.