PARADOX HILL: "FROM APPALACHIA TO LUNAR SHORE, REVISED EDITION"

TO THE BOYS IN FRESHMAN HISTORY (Thermopylae—480 B.C.)

53 TO THE BOYS IN FRESHMAN HISTORY (Thermopylae—480 B.C.) What can I tell you of the past To guard you from the atom blast Unless the story of that day The Spartans stood to bar the way? Two hundred thousand Persians flowed, A pluméd river, up the road. Three hundred Spartans, shield to shield, To guard the passage—not to yield— And yielded only one-by-one. Old Sparta’s children, son by son, Struck upward, and the Persian fell; For dearly bought what Spartans sell; The harsh old Mother teaches well. And now, forever, Greece is free, And on the plains of Thessaly The sheep crop softly in the grass, The road winds upward through the pass, The dust of Persia silts the sea, The shepherd guards Thermopylae. The Turk and Nazi both are gone, From Thrace the eagle of the dawn Wheels southward—and the silver gulls Of Skyros bank above the hulls Of Xerxes’ drownéd Argosy, A salted trestle in the sea— And still, forever, Greece is free. 54 And so what better can I say, But tell you softly of that day The Spartans stood to bar the way? For them the arrow’s flaming hiss; For you the atom’s gentle kiss: But I must tell you—tell you this. ...