These waters blue that round you lave, O servile offspring of the free !— Pronounce what sea, what shore is this? The gulf, the rock of Salamis ! These scenes, their story not unknown, Arise, and make again your own; Snatch from the ashes of your sires The embers of their former fires; And he who in the strife expires Will add to theirs a name of fear That Tyranny shall quake to hear, And leave his sons a hope, a fame, They too will rather die than shame; For Freedom's battle once begun, Bequeathed by bleeding Sire to Son, Though baffled oft is ever won. Bear witness, Greece, thy living page, Attest it many a deathless age! While kings, in dusty darkness hid, Have left a nameless pyramid, Thy heroes, though the general doom Hath swept the column from their tomb, A mightier monument command, The mountains of their native land! There points thy Muse to stranger's eye The graves of those that cannot die ! "Twere long to tell, and sad to trace, Each step from splendour to disgrace Enough-no foreign foe could quell Thy soul, till from itself it fell; Yes! Self-abasement paved the way To villain-bonds and despot-sway. SUNSET IN GREECE. Slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be sun, Not, as in Northern climes, obscurely bright, O'er the hush'd deep the yellow beam he throws, The god of gladness sheds his parting smile; On such an eve his palest beam he cast, When Athens! here thy Wisest looked his last. The cup of woe was quaff'd the spirit fled; But lo! from high Hymettus to the plain, Hides her fair face, nor girds her glowing form; All tinged with varied hues arrest the eye- SONG OF A GREEK. The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece! The Scian and the Teian muse, Have found the fame your shores refuse; To sounds which echo further west I dream'd that Greece might still be free; A king sate on the rocky brow Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis; And men in nations ;-all were his ! And where are they! and where art thou, 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 link'd among a fetter'd race, To feel at least a patriot's shame, Even 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, But one arise-we come, we come!" 'Tis but the living who are dumb. In vain-in vain: strike other chords; Fill high the cup with Samian wine! And shed the blood of Scio's vine! You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet, The nobler and the manlier one? It made Anacreon's song divine: 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! |