Fragments written for Hellas

Fairest of the Destinies,

Disarray thy dazzling eyes:

Keener far thy lightnings are

      Than the wingèd [bolts] thou bearest,

      And the smile thou wearest

Wraps thee as a star

      Is wrapped in light.

Could Arethuse to her forsaken urn

From Alpheus and the bitter Doris run,

      Or could the morning shafts of purest light

Again into the quivers of the Sun

      Be gathered—could one thought from its wild flight

Return into the temple of the brain

Without a change, without a stain,—

Could aught that is, ever again

Be what it once has ceased to be,

Greece might again be free!

A star has fallen upon the earth

Mid the benighted nations,

      A quenchless atom of immortal light,

      A living spark of Night,

A cresset shaken from the constellations.

      Swifter than the thunder fell

      To the heart of Earth, the well

      Where its pulses flow and beat,

      And unextinct in that cold source

      Burns, and oncourse

      Guides the sphere which is its prison,

Like an angelic spirit pent

In a form of mortal birth,

      Till, as a spirit half-arisen

Shatters its charnel, it has rent,

In the rapture of its mirth,

The thin and painted garment of the Earth,

Ruining its chaos—a fierce breath

Consuming all its forms of living death.