Robert Laurence Binyon

1869-1943 / England

The Voices Of Hellas

Time, that has crumbled to impotent nothingness
Empire on empire, towering in arrogance,
Time, at whose finger invisibly commanding
Their bannered battalions marched to oblivion,

Time stays motionless when are heard the voices
Of Hellas, proclaiming over a wondering world
Wisdom and joy and the radiance of reality
Disclosed as in an eternal sunrise.

Clear as the mountain--peaks (O many--mountained
Hellas!) soar in the morning splendour
When the valleys below them drowse in shadow,
Those voices into the light uplift us.

Now in the hour of menacing malignity
Hellas, holding the ancient passes
Stands for the world's cause, knowing it invincible,
Knowing that beside her stand the Immortals.
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