Sweeping the chords of Hellas with firm hand, <br />He wakes lost echoes from song's classic shore, <br />And brings their crystal cadence back once more <br />To touch the clouds and sorrows of a land <br />Where God's truth, cramped and fettered with a band <br />Of iron creeds, he cheers with golden lore <br />Of heroes and the men that long before <br />Wrought the romance of ages yet unscanned. <br /> <br />Still does a cry through sad Valhalla go <br />For Balder, pierced with Lok's unhappy spray -- <br />For Balder, all but spared by Frea's charms; <br />And still does art's imperial vista show, <br />On the hushed sands of Oxus, far away, <br />Young Sohrab dying in his father's arms.<br /><br />Edwin Arlington Robinson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/for-some-poems-by-matthew-arnold/
