LXXXII.

But, midst the throng in merry masquerade, Lurk there no hearts that throb with secret pain, Even through the closest searment half betray'd? To such the gentle murmurs of the main Seem to re-echo all they mourn in vain; To such the gladness of the gamesome crowd Is source of wayward thought and steru disdain: How do they loathe the laughter idly loud, And long to change the robe of revel for the shroud?

LXXXIII.

This must he feel, the true-born son of Greece, If Greece one true-born patriot still can boast: Not such as prate of war, but skulk in peace, The bondsman's peace, who sighs for ali he lost, Yet with smooth smile his tyrant can accost, And wield the slavish sickle, not the sword: Ah! Greece! they love thee least who owe thee most; Their birth, their blood, and that sublime record Of hero sires, who shame thy now degenerate horde!

LXXXIV.

When riseth Lacedemon's hardihood, When Thebes Epaminondas rears again, When Athens' children are with hearts endued, When Grecian mothers shall give birth to men, Then mayst thou be restored; but not till then. A thousand years scarce serve to form a state; An hour may lay it in the dust; and when Can man its shatter'd splendour renovate, Recal its virtues back, and vanquish time and fate?

LXXXV.

And yet how lovely in thine age of woe, Land of lost gods and godlike men, art thou! Thy vales of ever-green, thy hills of snow 37 Proclaim thee nature's varied favourite now: Thy fanes, thy temples to thy surface bow, Commingling slowly with heroic earth, Broke by the share of every rustic plough: So perish monuments of mortal birth, So perish all in turn, save well-recorded worth

LXXXVI.

Save where some solitary column mourns
Above its prostrate brethren of the cave; 38
Save where Tritonia's airy shrine adorns
Colonna's cliff, and gleams along the wave;
Save o'er some warrior's half-forgotten grave,
Where the grey stones and unmolested grass
Ages, but not oblivion, feebly brave,
While strangers only not regardless pass,

LXXXI.

Glanced many a light caique along the foam,
Danced on the shore the daughters of the land,
Ne thought had man or maid of rest or home,
While many a languid eye and thrilling hand
Exchanged the look few bosoms may withstand,
Or gently prest, return'd the pressure still:
Oh love! young love! bound in thy rosy band,
Let sage or cynic prattle as he will

These hours, and ouly these redeem life's years of ill!

LXXXVII

Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild; Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields, Thine olive ripe as when Minerva smiled, And still his honied wealth Hymettus yields; There the blithe bee hus fragrant fortress builds, The freeborn wauderer of thy mountain-air; Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds, Still in his beam Mendel's marbles glare; Art, glory, freedom fail, but nature still is fair.

XII.

But soon he knew himself the most unfit

Of men to herd with man; with whom he held
Little in common; untaught to submit

His thoughts to others, though his soul was quell'd
In youth by his own thoughts; still uncompell'd
He would not yield dominion of his mind
To spirits against whom his own rebell'd;
Proud though in desolation; which could find

A life within itself, to breathe without mankind.

XIII.

Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends, Where roll'd the ocean, thereon was his home; Where a blue sky and glowing clime extends, He had the passion and the power to roam; The desert, forest, cavern, breaker's foam, Were unto him companionship; they spake A mutual language, clearer than the tome Of his land's tongue, which he would oft forsake For nature's pages, glass'd by sunbeams on the lake.

XIV.

Like the Chaldean, he could watch the stars,
Till he had peopled them with beings bright

As their own beams; and earth, and earth-born jars,
And human frailties, were forgotten quite:
Could he have kept his spirit to that flight

He had been happy; but this clay will sink

Its spark immortal, envying it the light
To which it mounts, as if to break the link

XVIII.

And Harold stands upon this place of skulls,
The grave of France, the deadly Waterloo!
How in an hour the power which gave annuls
Its gifts, transferring fame as fleeting too!
In « pride of place » here last the eagle flew,
Then tore with bloody talon the rent plain,
Pierced by the shaft of banded nations through;
Ambition's life and labours all were vain ;

He wears the shatter'd links of the world's broken chain.

XIX.

Fit retribution! Gaul may champ the bit
And foam in fetters;-but is earth more free?
Did nations combat to make One submit;
Or league to teach all kings true sovereignty?
What! shall reviving thraldom again be
The patch'd-up idol of enlightend days?
Shall we, who struck the lion down, shall we

Pay the wolf homage? proffering lowly gaze

And servile knees to thrones? No; prove before ye praise!

XX.

If not, o'er one fallen despot boast no more!
In vain fair cheeks were furrow'd with hot tears
For Europe's flowers long rooted up before
The trampler of her vineyards; in vain years
Of death, depopulation, bondage, fears,
Have all been borne, and broken by the accord
Of roused-up millions: all that most endears
Glory, is when the myrtle wreathes the sword

brink.

XV.

But in man's dwellings he became a thing
Restless and worn, and stern and wearisome,
Droop'd as a wild-born falcon with clipt wing,
To whom the boundless air alone were home:
Then came his fit again, which to o'ercome,
As eagerly the barr'd-up bird will beat

His breast and beak against his wiry dome
Till the blood tinge his plumage, so the heat
Of his impeded soul would through his bosom eat.

XVI.

Self-exiled Harold wanders forth again,
With nought of hope left, but with less of gloom,
The very knowledge that he lived in vain,

That all was over on this side the tomb,

Had made despair a smilingness assume, Which, though 't were wild, -as on the plunder wreck

When mariners would madly meet their doom With draughts intemperate on the sinking deck,Did yet inspire a cheer, which he forbore to check. XVII.

Stop!--for thy tread is on an empire's dust! An earthquake's spoil is sepulchred below! Is the spot mark'd with no colossal bust? Nor column trophied for triumphal show? None; but the moral's truth tells simpler so, As the ground was before, thus let it be;How that red rain hath made the harvest grow And is this all the world has gain'd by thee, Thou first and last of fields! king-making victory

XXIV.

Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro,
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago
Blush'd at the praise of their own loveliness;
And there were sudden partings, such as press
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs
Which ne'er might be repeated; who could guess
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes,

XXX.

There have been tears and breaking hearts for thee,
And mine were nothing, had I such to give;
But when I stood beneath the fresh green tree,
Which living waves where thou didst cease to live,
And saw around me the wide field revive
With fruits and fertile promise, and the spring
Come forth her work of gladness to contrive,
With all her reckless birds upon the wing,