Explore "Scissors Grinder" by Edwina Stanton Babcock on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"Twas long ago" they said / Of the country whence I came, / "Greece is a dream that is dead, / Athens only a name! " / Yet on this April day / As I go through the towns, / I see soft Thessaly / On these New England downs. / I see the lilied plains / Where the white cranes droop their bills; / And the moving cattle trains / Winding into the hills; / While the farmer drums his bees, / And the donkey shakes his bells / Under the olive trees / Where the Bay of Corinth swells, / To great blue-silver gate / Where the sea-bound temples wait, / And the Eleusinian way / Mistily winds the bay.
On Knossos' shady knolls / I see the columned tiers; / And the cool Ionic scrolls / Throb to Olympian cheers. / I see a gravelled stream / Winding Olympian reeds; / Again the Scythian dream / Its wagoned people leads. / The river-god drifts on, / Raising a poppied head; / A pipe sounds halcyon -- / Nothing of Greece is dead...!