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Home  »  The Book of New York Verse  »  John Myers O’Hara

Hamilton Fish Armstrong, ed. The Book of New York Verse. 1917.

The Greek Quarter

John Myers O’Hara

THE CRYPTIC letters of the golden tongue

The philhellene upon the window sees,

And hears the music of Maeonides

Above the roar by trains and traffic flung;

Heroic odes to Argive valour sung.

And softer strains of old idyllic ease;

A solace lure for servile destinies

Unknown to Hellas when the world was young.

I sip the coffee of Demetrios

And listen while my thought is far away;

The swarthy faces of the dim café

Are olive vendors on the shores of Cos;

The wall lamps flicker but I peer across

The blue Ægean sparkling in the day.