Hamilton Fish Armstrong, ed. The Book of New York Verse. 1917.
The White LightsEdward Arlington Robinson
W
That held the dream of Pericles,
When first Athenian ears were told
The tumult of Euripides,
When men met Aristophanes,
Who fledged them with immortal quills—
Here, where the time knew none of these,
There were some islands and some hills.
The sons of mothers end their days,
When Flaccus had Leuconoë
To banish her Chaldean ways,
When first the pearled, alembic phrase
Of Maro into music ran,
Here there was neither blame nor praise
For Rome or for the Mantuan.
Lay freighted, for the eyes of One,
With galleons laden long before
By moonlit wharves in Avalon—
Here, where the white lights have begun
To seethe a way for something fair,
No prophet knew, from what was done,
That there was triumph in the air.