H.J. DeBurgh, "Half-Hours with the Classics"

H.J. DeBurgh
HALF-HOURS
WITH THE CLASSICS

Ah, those hours when by-gone sages
Led our thoughts through Learning's ways,
When the wit of sunnier ages
Called once more to Earth the days
When rang from Athens' vine-hung lanes
Thy wild, wild laugh, Aristophanes!

Pensive through the land of Lotus,
Sauntered we by Nilus' side;
Garrulous old Herodotus
Still our mentor, still our guide,
Prating of the mystic bliss
Of Isis and of Osiris.

As the learn'd ones trooped before us,
All the wise of Hellas' land,
Down from mythic Pythagoras,
To the hemlock drinker grand.
Dark the hour that closed the gates
Of gloomy Dis on thee, Socrates.

Ah, those hours of tend'rest study,
When Electra's poet told
Of Love's cheek once warm and ruddy,
Pale with grief, with death chill cold!
Sobbing low like summer tides
Flow thy verses, Euripides!

High our hearts beat when Cicero
Shook the Capitolian dome;
How we shuddered, watching Nero
'Mid the glare of blazing Rome!
How those records still affright us
On thy gloomy page, Tacitus!

Back to youth I seem to glide, as
I recall those by-gone scenes,
When we conned o'er Thucydides,
Or recited Demosthenes.

L'Envoi

Ancient Sages, pardon these
Somewhat doubtful quantities