Bright as that fairy vision of the wave, Raised by the magic of Morgana’s wand,[44] On summer seas that undulating lave Romantic Sicily’s Arcadian strand; That pictured scene of airy colonnades, Light palaces, in shadowy glory drest, Enchanted groves, and temples, and arcades, Gleaming and floating on the ocean’s breast; Athens! thus fair the dream of thee appears, As Fancy’s eye pervades the veiling cloud of years. LXXIV. Still be that cloud withdrawn--oh! mark on high, Crowning yon hill, with temples richly graced, That fane, august in perfect symmetry, The purest model of Athenian taste. Fair Parthenon! thy Doric pillars rise In simple dignity, thy marble’s hue Unsullied shines, relieved by brilliant skies, That round thee spread their deep ethereal blue; And art o’er all thy light proportions throws The harmony of grace, the beauty of repose. LXXV. And lovely o’er thee sleeps the sunny glow, When morn and eve in tranquil splendour reign, And on thy sculptures, as they smile, bestow Hues that the pencil emulates in vain. Then the fair forms by Phidias wrought, unfold Each latent grace, developing in light; Catch, from soft clouds of purple and of gold, Each tint that passes, tremulously bright; And seem indeed whate’er devotion deems, While so suffused with heaven, so mingling with its beams. LXXVI. But oh! what words the vision may portray, The form of sanctitude that guards thy shrine? There stands thy goddess, robed in war’s array, Supremely glorious, awfully divine! With spear and helm she stands, and flowing vest, And sculptured ægis, to perfection wrought; And on each heavenly lineament imprest, Calmly sublime, the majesty of thought-- The pure intelligence, the chaste repose-- All that a poet’s dream around Minerva throws. LXXVII. Bright age of Pericles! let fancy still Through time’s deep shadows all thy splendour trace, And in each work of art’s consummate skill Hail the free spirit of thy lofty race: That spirit, roused by every proud reward That hope could picture, glory could bestow, Foster’d by all the sculptor and the bard Could give of immortality below. Thus were thy heroes form’d, and o’er their name, Thus did thy genius shed imperishable fame. LXXVIII.