DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5074#0363
THE PROPYL.EA.
345
words as the only happy and satisfying life—that Life
which he could only know as a still hidden problem, not
an actual, finished fact. Pity that a few hundred years
later the mantle of darkness should have again dimmed
its lustre, and the fair building have been perverted into
a Mosque,— after which it fell into complete ruin:
ruined, indeed, yet glorious and beautiful still, like
some noble matron who has borne her part through all
the prime of life, now fading into the silvery tresses,
the bending stoop, and the Hngexing step of age, yet in
whom, although the loveliness of youth has vanished,
the soul shines forth in pure and holy spiritual beauty,
while she "walks with inward glory crowned."*
"And how . . . describe
Thy Perfectness, wheh such thy Ruins are ! "
One of the spots in the Acropolis where thoughts
of the past crowd most rapidly on the mind, is when
standing below the steps of the Propykea — the
giant portal, the barrier-gate, the triumphal arch which
led into the Fortress and up to the Sacred Altar of
Athena — completed more than three hundred years
before Christ, yet still erect in proud stern majesty : the
mind rapidly peoples the pavement with the solemn
pageants that passed up the very steps on which one
stands, while the mark of the chariot Wheels, and the
groove scooped by the heavy doors moving over the
marble floor, still distinctly visible, seem to abridge
over the two thousand years since Greece became a
Eoman province. Delicately glowing with the minute
detail of bright colours still traceable on the friezes
and mouldings, which made the lustre of the snowy
marble shine still more brightly, the Propyleea with
* Shelley.
345
words as the only happy and satisfying life—that Life
which he could only know as a still hidden problem, not
an actual, finished fact. Pity that a few hundred years
later the mantle of darkness should have again dimmed
its lustre, and the fair building have been perverted into
a Mosque,— after which it fell into complete ruin:
ruined, indeed, yet glorious and beautiful still, like
some noble matron who has borne her part through all
the prime of life, now fading into the silvery tresses,
the bending stoop, and the Hngexing step of age, yet in
whom, although the loveliness of youth has vanished,
the soul shines forth in pure and holy spiritual beauty,
while she "walks with inward glory crowned."*
"And how . . . describe
Thy Perfectness, wheh such thy Ruins are ! "
One of the spots in the Acropolis where thoughts
of the past crowd most rapidly on the mind, is when
standing below the steps of the Propykea — the
giant portal, the barrier-gate, the triumphal arch which
led into the Fortress and up to the Sacred Altar of
Athena — completed more than three hundred years
before Christ, yet still erect in proud stern majesty : the
mind rapidly peoples the pavement with the solemn
pageants that passed up the very steps on which one
stands, while the mark of the chariot Wheels, and the
groove scooped by the heavy doors moving over the
marble floor, still distinctly visible, seem to abridge
over the two thousand years since Greece became a
Eoman province. Delicately glowing with the minute
detail of bright colours still traceable on the friezes
and mouldings, which made the lustre of the snowy
marble shine still more brightly, the Propyleea with
* Shelley.