Fragment Of A Proposed Drama 1832. Alcibiades Loquitur. Poem by Henry Alford

--Like a great river, toward the rising sun
Broad Hellespont is flowing: far beyond,
Over a land of never--dying names,
Tower the brows of Ida. I can see
The white waves chase each other on the deep,
Between our Chersonese and Vulcan's isle;
And there, where the azure level of the sea
Flush meets the laughing blue, full many a league
My thought sails daily till above the waves
Gray headlands rise, and Acro--Sunium's fane
Traces its glittering shafts upon the sky.
O A thens--O my mother--couldst thou now
Make peace in my torn bosom: couldst thou now
Receive thy son, as thou receivedst him,
With thronging ports and humming populace,--
Could I but now be standing as I stood
Upon the sacred way, where grateful passed
The holy pomp beneath my guarding hand!
--But why thus weak? Is it that all is lost?
May not the tumult of wild battle yet
Be poured around me? may not yet again
The horse wave dash about the ploughing prow, And subject cities