Classic Poem

Alas! how sad that simple truth
Once sung to Grecian men,
That legend passion-fraught — ?????-
??? af??ese?!

For had the foot of casual crime
Passed harmless by, and not
Doomed to an end before its time
That late lamented pot,

What ample views, what prospects high
Before my fancy start!
Methinks I see it typify
Some phase of ancient art:

It might, exposed to public view,
Have proved perchance to us
How very, very far from true
Is old Herodotus,

Or with the centuries' increase
(A beacon 'mid the mists
That wrap the chronicles of Greece
For archaeologists).

Have thrown a flood of radiant light
On manners, customs, dates,
And settled for a decade quite
What view shall pay in Greats.

I see Extensionists in scores
Before that relic sit,
Imbibing Greek through all their pores
By contemplating it:

For 'tis not verse, and 'tis not prose,
But earthenware alone
It is that ultimately shows
What men have thought and done!

And so, though still in Hellas lies
Full many a pot and pan
Wherein the souls who books despise
May read the lot of man,

Yet will I weep for simple truth
On all occasions when
I read the tale of how ?????-
??? af??ese?.