Chorus monologue — Specimens of Greek Tragedy — Aeschylus and Sophocles

Of this land of chivalry Thou the garden here dost see, White Colonus, in whose glade, Underneath the greenwood shade, Her loved haunt, the nightingale Poureth oft her luscious wail. Glossy-dark the ivy creeps; Flourishes along the steeps With berries store, scorched by no ray, Rent by no storm, the sacred bay. Here loves the jolly god to rove With merry nymphs that round him move. Here many a flower, heaven-watered, blows, Worthy to bind immortal brows. Narcissus waves its clusters gay, And crocus gleams with golden ray. Nor do the springs that feed thy flow, Cephisus, intermission know: Day after day their crystal stream Makes the rich loam with plenty teem. Nor do the muses keep afar, Nor Aphrodite's golden car. Here grows, what neither Asia's coast Nor Pelops' Dorian Isle can boast, The tree that Nature's bounty rears, The tree that mocks the foeman's spears, That nowhere blooms so fair and free And rich--our own grey olive tree, Of which no chieftain, old or young, Shall rob the land from which it sprung. Blue-eyed Athene is its guard, And Morian Zeus its sleepless ward. And loftier still the note of praise That by the grace of heaven we raise To this our motherland, for she Is Queen of steeds, Queen of the sea. Poseidon, son of Saturn, thou Didst set this crown upon her brow, When first upon Athenian course Thou taughtst to curb the fiery horse. The dashing oar our seamen ply, Light o'er the wave our galleys fly, Keeping the sea-nymphs company.