7. I love the fair face of the maid in her youth, 8. Remember the moment when Previsa fell,1 The shrieks of the conquer'd, the conquerors' yell; The roofs that we fired, and the plunder we shared, The wealthy we slaughter'd, the lovely we spared. 9. I talk not of mercy, I talk not of fear; He neither must know who would serve the vizier : Since the days of our prophet the Crescent ne'er saw A chief ever glorious like Ali Pashaw. 10. Dark Muchtar his son to the Danube is sped, Let the yellow-hair'd2 Giaours3 view his horsetail with dread. When his Delhis5 come dashing in blood o'er the banks, How few shall escape from the Muscovite ranks ! 11. Selictar 16 unsheathe then our chief's scimitar: 1 It was taken by storm from the French. 2 Yellow is the epithet given to the Russians. 4 The insignia of a pasha. 5 Horsemen, answering to our forlorn hope. 6 Sword-bearer. LXXIII. Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth! Immortal, though no more; though fallen great! Who now shall lead thy scattered children forth, And long accustom❜d bondage uncreate? Not such thy sons who whilome did await, The hopeless warriors of a willing doom, In bleak Thermopyla's sepulchral straitOh! who that gallant spirit shall resume, Leap from Eurotas' banks, and call thee from the tomb? LXXIV. Spirit of freedom! when on Phyle's brow2 Trembling beneath the scourge of Turkish hand; From birth till death enslaved; in word, in deed, unmann'd. LXXV. In all save form alone, how changed! and who That marks the fire still sparkling in each eye, Who but would deem their bosoms burn'd anew With thy unquenched beam, lost Liberty! And many dream withal the hour is nigh That gives them back their fathers' heritage: For foreign arms and aid they fondly sigh, Nor solely dare encounter hostile rage, [page. Or tear their name defiled from Slavery's mournful 1 Some Thoughts on the present state of Greece and Turkey will be found in the Appendix, Notes [D] and [E]. 2 Phyle, which commands a beautiful view of Athens, has still considerable remains: it was seized bv Thrasybulus, previous to the expulsion of the Thirty. LXXVI. Hereditary bondsmen ! know ye not Who would be free themselves must strike the biow? By their right arms the conquest must be wrought? Will Gaul or Muscovite redress ye? no! True, they may lay your proud despoilers low, But not for you will Freedom's altars flame. Shades of the Helots! triumph o'er your foe! Greece! change thy lords, thy state is still the same, Thy glorious day is o'er, but not thine years of shame. LXXVII. The city won for Allah from the Giaour, The Giaour from Othman's race again may wrest; Receive the fiery Frank, her former guest;1 The prophet's tomb of all its pious spoil, 1 May wind their path of blood along the West; But ne'er will freedom seek this fated soil, But slave succeed to slave through years of endless toil. LXXVIII. Yet mark their mirth-ere lenten days begin 1 When taken by the Latins, and retained for several years. 2 Mecca and Medina were taken some time ago by the Wahabees, a sect yearly increasing. LXXIX. And whose more rife with merriment than thine, Oh Stamboul!1 once the empress of their reign? Though turbans now pollute Sophia's shrine, And Greece her very altars eyes in vain: (Alas! her woes will still pervade my strain !) Gay were her minstrels once, for free her throng, All felt the common joy they now must feign, Nor oft I've seen such sights, nor heard such song,~ As woo'd the eye, and thrill'd the Bosphorus along.2 1 [Of Constantinople Lord Byron says, "I have seen the ruins of Athens, of Ephesus, and Delhi; I have traversed great part of Turkey and many other parts of Europe, and some of Asia; but I never beheld a work of nature or art which yielded an impression like the prospect on each side, from the Seven Towers to the end of the Golden Horn."] 2 "The view of Constantinople," says Mr. Rose, “which appeared intersected by groves of cypress, (for such is the effect of its great burial-grounds planted with these trees,) its gilded domes and minarets reflecting the first rays of the sun; the deep blue sea in which it glassed itself,' and that sea covered with beautiful boats and barges darting in every direction in perfect silence, amid seafowl, who sat at rest upon the waters, altogether conveyed such an impression as I had never received, and probably never`shall again receive, from the view of any other place." The following sonnet, by the same author, has been so often quoted, that, but for its exquisite beauty, we should not have ventured to reprint it here:"A glorious form thy shining city wore, Mid cypress thickets of perennial green, Of sculptured barks and galleys many a score; Who, mute as Sinbad's man of copper, rows, I, hardly conscious if I dream'd or woke, LXXX. Loud was the lightsome tumult on the shore, Till sparkling billows seem'd to light the banks they lave. LXXXI. Glanced many a light caique along the foam, These hours, and only these, redeem Life's years of ill! LXXXII. But, midst the throng in merry masquerade, And long to change the robe of revel for the shroud! |