By H.T. SUDDUTH.
A haunting presence seems to fill the air,
A shade of grandeur gone and e'er to be
One with the legends of the Ionian Sea--
One memory more linked with Corcyra fair,
Disjoined, alas! from presence otherwhere--
A lost illusion of the years once free
And glorious in the kindling memory
Of grand Homeric Past still lingering there!
The olive orchards crown the hills; the vine
And rose still flourish on the sunny slopes
As in Alcinous' Gardens; Morning opes
Her eyes irradiant with the dawn divine!
But now no longer at Achilleion
The Kaiser wakes to see fair Eos dawn.
In Belgian or in Russian lands afar,
Beneath the smoke-cloud cope of shrouded Heaven
Where hissing shot and shell and War's red levin
Spread far and wide the canopy of War!
Where Nature shudders and seems to abhor
The awful scene; where myriad souls, unshriven,
From life and all its joys at once are riven,
Behold the Kaiser now 'neath Mars' red star!
A stern and sombre, gray-haired figure he,
And standing midst the wreck of youthful dreams
Sees he at times through battle smoke the gleams
Of rippling waves on blue Ionian Sea?
Thinks he not sadly on the days now gone,
And dreams he dreamed at fair Achilleion?