On the Pass up from the plain
In the land of Macedon
We halted and drew rein,
And, looking backward down,
Beheld Amphipolis,
Vast-ruined, in Thracian valleys
Where to-day's village is
A rat's nest in a palace.
And gazing on that scene
We trembled, and were dumb.
O, great as Man has been
Can he become?

Hellenes may hold that pass
In the land of Macedon
And walk where Plato was,
But Plato's soul—has gone.

What are our minds, to his—
And what are we become?
Even as Amphipolis
That filled the Thracian valleys
Where to-day's village is
A rat's nest in a palace.

'Twas then, O spirits bow'd,
Snow-shoulder'd Rhodope
Sent a keen wind from her cloud
That called to us aloud
Russia is free!