Children of the Night

For Some Poems by Matthew Arnold

     Sweeping the chords of Hellas with firm hand,
     He wakes lost echoes from song's classic shore,
     And brings their crystal cadence back once more
     To touch the clouds and sorrows of a land
     Where God's truth, cramped and fettered with a band
     Of iron creeds, he cheers with golden lore
     Of heroes and the men that long before
     Wrought the romance of ages yet unscanned.

     Still does a cry through sad Valhalla go
     For Balder, pierced with Lok's unhappy spray —
     For Balder, all but spared by Frea's charms;
     And still does art's imperial vista show,
     On the hushed sands of Oxus, far away,
     Young Sohrab dying in his father's arms.