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Spread out earth's holiest records here,
Of days and deeds to reverence dear;
A zeal like this what pious legends tell?
On kingdoms built

In blood and guilt,

The worshippers of vulgar triumph dwell;
But what exploit with theirs shall page,
Who rose to bless their kind

Who left their nation and their age,
Man's spirit to unbind?

Who boundless seas passed o'er,

And boldly met, in every path,
Famine, and frost, and savage wrath,

To dedicate a shore,

Where Piety's meek train might breathe their vow,
And seek their Maker with an unshamed brow;
Where Liberty's glad race might proudly come,
And set up there an everlasting home?

6 O many a time it hath been told,
The story of these men of old:
For this fair Poetry hath wreathed
Her sweetest, purest flower;
For this proud Eloquence hath breathed
His strain of loftiest power;
Devotion, too, hath lingered round
Each spot of consecrated ground,

And hill and valley blessed

There, where our banished fathers strayed,
There, where they loved and wept and prayed,
There, where their ashes rest,

And never may they rest unsung,

While Liberty can find a tongue.

Twine, Gratitude, a wreath for them

More deathless than the diadem,

Who, to life's noblest end,

Gave up life's noblest powers,
And bade the legacy descend
Down, down to us and ours.

LXXXVIII. -THE INTELLECTUAL INFLUENCE OF GREECE.

FELTON.

[CORNELIUS CONWAY FELTON was born in West Newbury, Massachusetts, November 6, 1807, and died February 26, 1862. He was graduated at Harvard College in 1827. In 1834 he was elected Eliot Professor of Greek Literature in Harvard College, which office he retained till 1860, when he was elevated to the presidency of the same institution. He was a man of extensive learning and great intellectual activity, warmly interested in the cause of education, and much beloved in all the relations of life. He was the editor of various works in the department of classical learning, and a frequent contributor to the periodical literature of the country.

The following extract is from an address before the Alumni of Harvard College, delivered July 20, 1854.

Parnassus is a lofty mountain in the central part of Greece, and Acrocorinthos a high hill overhanging the city of Corinth. The Acropolis was the citadel of Athens. The Cephissus was a small stream in Athens. Agora is the Greek word for market-place. The Hill of Mars, or Areopagus, was a small eminence in Athens. The Parthenon was a temple of Minerva, built of marble, the ruins of which are still remaining. Marathon was the scene of a battle, and the bay of Salamis of a sea-fight, between the Greeks and Persians.]

AN ancient orator, claiming for his beloved Athens the leadership among the states of Greece, rests his argument chiefly on her pre-eminence in those intellectual graces which embellish the present life of man, and her inculca5 tion of those doctrines which gave to the initiated a sweeter hope of a life beyond the present.

During the long existence of the Athenian Republic, amidst the interruptions of foreign and domestic wars,— her territory overrun by Hellenic and Barbarian armies, 10 her forests burned, her fields laid waste, her temples levelled in the dust, - in those tumultuous ages of her democratic existence, the fire of her creative genius never

smouldered. She matured and perfected the art of historical composition, of political and forensic eloquence, of popular legislation, of lyric and dramatic poetry, of music, painting, architecture, and sculpture; she unfolded the 5 mathematics, theoretically and practically, and clothed the moral and metaphysical sciences in the brief sententious wisdom of the myriad-minded Aristotle, and the honeyed eloquence of Plato.

Rome overran the world with her arms, and though she 10 did not always spare the subject, she beat down the proud, and laid her laws upon the prostrate nations. Greece fell before the universal victor, but she still asserted her intellectual supremacy, and, as even the Roman poet confessed, the conquered became the teacher and guide of the con15 queror.

At the present moment, the intellectual dominion of Greece or rather of Athens, the school of Greece — is more absolute than ever. Her Plato is still the unsurpassed teacher of moral wisdom; her Aristotle has not 20 been excelled as a philosophic observer; her Æschylus and Sophocles have been equalled only by Shakspeare. On the field of Marathon, we call up the shock of battle and the defeat of the Barbarian host; but with deeper interest still we remember that the great dramatic poet fought for 25 his country's freedom in that brave muster. As we gaze

over the blue waters of Salamis, we think not only of the clash of triremes, the shout of the onset, the paan of victory; but of the magnificent lyrical drama in which the martial poet worthily commemorated the naval triumph 30 which he had worthily helped to achieve.

All these things suggest lessons for us, even now. We have the Roman passion for universal empire, under the names of Manifest Destiny and Annexation. I do not deny the good there is in this, nor the greatness inherent 35 in extended empire, bravely and fairly won. But the empire of science, letters, and art is honorable and enviable,

because it is gained by no unjust aggression on neighboring countries; by no subjection of weaker nations to the rights of the stronger; by no stricken fields, reddened with the blood of slaughtered myriads. No crimes of vio5 lence or fraud sow the seed of disease, which must in time lay it prostrate in the dust; its foundations are as immovable as virtue, and its structure as imperishable as the heavens.

If we must add province to province, let us add realm 10 to realm in our intellectual march. If we must enlarge our territory till the continent can no longer contain us, let us not forget to enlarge, with equal step, the boundaries of science and the triumphs of art. I confess I would rather, for human progress, that the poet of America gave 15 a new charm to the incantations of the Muse; that the orator of America spoke in new and loftier tones of civic and philosophic eloquence; that the artist of America overmatched the godlike forms, whose placid beauty looks out upon us from the great past, than annex to a country, 20 already overgrown, every acre of desert land, from ocean to ocean, and from pole to pole.

If we combine the Roman character with the Greek, the Roman has had its sway long enough, and it is time the Greek should take its turn. Vast extent is something, 25 but not everything. The magnificent civilization of England, and her imperial sway over the minds of men, are the trophies of a realm, geographically considered, but a satellite to the continent of Europe, which you can traverse in a single day.

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On

The states of Greece were of insignificant extent. the map of the world they fill a scarcely visible space, and Attica is a microscopic dot. From the heights of Parnassus, from the Acrocorinthos, the eye ranges over the whole land which has filled the universe with the renown of its 35 mighty names.

From the Acropolis of Athens we trace the scenes where

Socrates conversed and taught and died; where Demos thenes breathed deliberate valor into the despairing hearts of his countrymen; where the dramatists exhibited their matchless tragedy and comedy; where Plato charmed the 5 hearers of the Academy with the divinest teaching of Philosophy, while the Cephissus murmured by under the shadow of immemorial olive-groves, and the Hill of Mars; where St. Paul taught the wondering but respectful sages of Agora, the knowledge of the living God, and the 10 resurrection to life eternal.

There stand the ruins of the Parthenon, saluted and transfigured by the rising and the setting sun, or the unspeakable loveliness of the Grecian night; beautiful, solemn, pathetic. In that focus of an hour's easy walk, the 15 lights of ancient culture condensed their burning rays; and from this centre they have lighted all time and the whole world.

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[GEORGE GORDON BYRON, Lord Byron, was born in London, January 22, 1788, and died at Missolonghi, in Greece, April 19, 1824. In March, 1812, he pub. lished the first two cantos of his splendid poem, "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage,” which produced an impression upon the public almost without precedent in English literature, and gained him the very highest place among the poets of the day. From that time till his death he poured forth a rapid succession of brilliant and striking productions, varying in degrees of merit, but all contributing to maintain him in his lofty literary position, and keeping his name ever fresh upon men's lips. The interest which he awakened as a poet was further enhanced by a wayward and irregular life, by an unhappy marriage, a separation from his wife, and by his finally joining the Greeks in their struggles against the Turks. Perhaps no man of letters was ever so much talked about, written about, attacked and defended, in his own life, as he.

Lord Byron's fame with posterity will not equal the prodigious popularity he enjoyed among his contemporaries. And yet his poetry has, in an intellectual point of view, some great and enduring excellences. In description and in the expression of passion he is unrivalled. His power over the resources of the language is great, though he is not a careful or accurate writer. His poetry abounds with passages of melting tenderness and exquisite sweetness, which

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