PHEIDIAS

Posted by Admin on 23 February 2008, 12:00 am

On high the bronze Athene rears
immortal art for wond’ring eyes;
too few the eyes that fill with tears,
when Pheidias in Elis dies.

So great were his conceptions; so high was his ideal;
that fellow-men were phantoms, and only gods were real.

Within the Parthenon, the Maid,
supreme, all other work defies;
her gold, to clear his honour, weighed,
yet Pheidias in exile dies.

So mighty his creations; so perfect his ideal;
so fine his inspiration, that gods alone were real.

The gods, perchance, resent the skill,
which, Zeus re-born, with Kronos vies;
his doom then serves the high ones’ will,
and Pheidias in Elis dies.

T. C. Hudson
15th November 1949

© T. C. Hudson.

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