A king sat on the rocky brow Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis; And ships, by thousands, lay below, And men in nations-all were his! He counted them at break of dayAnd when the sun set, where were they? And where are they? and where art thou, My country? On thy voiceless shore The heroic lay is tuneless now The heroic bosom beats no more! And must thy lyre, so long divine, Degenerate into hands like mine? 'Tis something, in the dearth of fame, Though linked among a fettered race, To feel at least a patriot's shame, Ev'n as I sing, suffuse my face; For what is left the poet here? For Greeks a blush-for Greece a tear. Must we but weep o'er days more blest? Must we but blush ?-Our fathers bled. Earth! render back from out thy breast A remnant of our Spartan dead! Of the three hundred grant but three, To make a new Thermopyla! What! silent still? and silent all? And answer, "Let one living head, THE ISLES OF GREECE. In vain! in vain! strike other chords; Fill high the cup with Samian wine! Leave battles to the Turkish hordes, And shed the blood of Scio's vine! Hark! rising to the ignoble call, How answers each bold Bacchanal ! You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet,—- The nobler and the manlier one? Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! We will not think of themes like these! It made Anacreon's song divine; He served but served Polycrates A tyrant; but our masters then Were still at least our countrymen. The tyrant of the Chersonese Was freedom's best and bravest friend; That tyrant was Miltiades! Oh that the present hour would lend Another despot of the kind! Such chains as his were sure to bind. Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! Such as the Doric mothers bore; 59 Trust not for freedom to the Franks- The only hope of courage dwells; Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! Place me on Sunium's marbled steep, LORD BYRON. Greece. ET are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild, YET Sweet are thy groves and verdant are thy fields. Thine olive ripe as when Minerva smiled; And still his honeyed wealth Hymettus yields. LORD BYRon. ENSLAVED GREECE. 61 Enslaved Greece. E who hath bent him o'er the dead (The first dark day of nothingness, The last of danger and distress)— Have swept the lines where beauty lingers; The rapture of repose that's there, The fixed, yet tender traits that streak Appals the gazing mourner's heart, The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon,— So fair, so calm, so softly sealed, 'Tis Greece, but living Greece no more! We start-for soul is wanting there. Hers is the loveliness in death That parts not quite with parting breath: But beauty with that fearful bloom, A gilded halo hovering round decay, The farewell beam of Feeling passed away! Spark of that flame, perchance of heavenly birth, Which gleams, but warms no more its cherished earth! Clime of the unforgotten brave ! Whose land, from plain to mountain-cave, These waters blue that round you lave,— These scenes, their story not unknown, Thy heroes-though the general doom A mightier monument command, LORD BYRON |