g light and roofed with a sky that
keeps its azure even in the midst of night. Life here is full, restless,
and tumultuous as in the days of Athens of old. The violet shadows of
the mountains enclosing the silver olive groves of the white plain are
still the makers of the violet crown of Athens.

The poet in one of his "Hundred Voices" pictures a clear Attic afternoon
in February:

Even in the winter's heart, the almonds are ablossom!
And lo, the angry month is gay with sunshine laughter,
While to this beauty round about a crown you weave,
O naked rocks and painted mountain slopes of Athens.

Even the snow on Parnes seems like fields in bloom;
A timid greenish glow caresses like a dream
The Heights of Corydallus; white Pentele smiles upon
The Sacred Rock of Pallas; and old Hymettus stoops
To listen to the love-song of Phaleron's sea.

It is its scanty vegetation that makes the southwestern region of Attica
look like a mountain lake of light. The nakedness of the mountain ranges
and the whiteness of the plains are vaulted over by a brilliant sky and
surrounded by a sea of a splendid sapphire glow. Even the olive trees,
which still grace the fields about Athens are bunches of silver rather
than of green. In "The Satyr, or the Naked Song," taken from the volume
of _Town and Wilderness_ we may detect the very spirit which, springing
from the same soil thousands of years ago, created the song which
gradually rose from primitive sensuousness to the heights of the Greek
Tragedy:

All about us naked!
All is naked here!
Mountains, fields, and heavens wide!
The day reigns uncontrolled;
The world, transparent; and pellucid
The thrice-deep palaces.
Eyes, fill yourselves with light
And ye, O Lyres, with rhythm!

Here, the trees are stains
Out of tune and rare;
The world is wine unmixed;
And nakedness, a mistress.
Here, the shade is but a dream;
And even on the night's dim lips
A golden laughter dawns!

Here all are stripped of cover
And revel lustfully;
The barren rock, a star!
The body is a flame!
Rubies here and things of gold,
Priceless pearls and things of silver,
Scatter, O divinely naked Land,
Scatter, O thrice-noble Attica!

Here manhood is enchanting,
And flesh is deified;
Artemis is virginity,
And Longing is a Hermes;
And here, and every hour,
Aphrod