Till bolder spirits seized the rule, and nailed On men the yoke that man should never bear, And drove them forth to battle.
Lo! unveiled
What is there!
The scene of those stern ages!
A boundless sea of blood, and the wild air
Moans with the crimson surges that entomb
Cities and bannered armies; forms that wear
The kingly circlet rise, amid the gloom,
O'er the dark wave, and straight are swallowed
in its womb.
Those ages have no memory-but they left
A record in the desert-columns strown
On the waste sands, and statues fallen and cleft,
Heaped like a host in battle overthrown;
Vast ruins, where the mountain's ribs of stone
Were hewn into a city; streets that spread
In the dark earth, where never breath has blown Of heaven's sweet air, nor foot of man dares tread The long and perilous ways-the Cities of the Dead:
And tombs of monarchs to the clouds up-piled-
They perished-but the eternal tombs remain-
And the black precipice, abrupt and wild,
Pierced by long toil and hollowed to a fane ;—
Huge piers and frowning forms of gods sustain
The everlasting arches, dark and wide,
Like the night-heaven, when clouds are black
with rain.
But idly skill was tasked, and strength was
All was the work of slaves to swell a despot's
And Virtue cannot dwell with slaves, nor reign
O'er those who cower to take a tyrant's yoke ;
She left the down-trod nations in disdain,
And flew to Greece, when Liberty awoke,
New-born, amid those glorious vales, and broke
Sceptre and chain with her fair youthful hands :
As rocks are shivered in the thunder-stroke.
And lo! in full-grown strength, an empire
stands
Of leagued and rival states, the wonder of the lands.
Oh, Greece thy flourishing cities were a spoil Unto each other; thy hard hand oppressed And crushed the helpless; thou didst make thy
Drunk with the blood of those that loved thee
And thou didst drive, from thy unnatural breast, Thy just and brave to die in distant climes; Earth shuddered at thy deeds, and sighed for
From thine abominations; after times,
That yet shall read thy tale, will tremble at thy crimes.
Yet there was that within thee which has saved
Thy glory, and redeemed thy blotted name;
The story of thy better deeds, engraved
On fame's unmouldering pillar, puts to shame
Our chiller virtue; the high art to tame
The whirlwind of the passions was thine own;
And the pure ray, that from thy bosom came,
Far over many a land and age has shone,
And mingles with the light that beams from
And Rome, thy sterner, younger sister, she
Who awed the world with her imperial frown,
Rome drew the spirit of her race from thee,-
The rival of thy shame and thy renown.
Yet her degenerate children sold the crown
Of earth's wide kingdoms to a line of slaves;
Guilt reigned, and wo with guilt, and plagues
came down,
Till the north broke its floodgates, and the
Whelmed the degraded race, and weltered o'er
Vainly that ray of brightness from above,
That shone around the Galilean lake,
The light of hope, the leading star of love,
Struggled, the darkness of that day to break
|