And but for that chill, changeless brow, Where cold Obstruction's apathy Appals the gazing mourner's heart, As if to him it could impart

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The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon;
Yes, but for these and these alone,
Some moments, ay, one treacherous hour
He still might doubt the tyrant's power;
So fair, so calm, so softly seal'd,
The first, last look by death reveal'd!
Such is the aspect of this shore;
'Tis Greece, but living Greece no more!
So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,
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,
That hue which haunts it to the tomb,
Expression's last receding ray,

A gilded halo hovering round decay,
The farewell beam of Feeling past away
Spark of that flame, perchance of heavenly
birth,

ΙΟΙ

Which gleams, but warms no more its cherish'd earth!

!

Clime of the unforgotten brave! Whose land from plain to mountain-cave Was Freedom's home or Glory's grave! Shrine of the mighty! can it be, That this is all remains of thee? Approach, thou craven crouching slave: Say, is not this Thermopyla? These waters blue that round you lave, Oh, servile offspring of the free - 111

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,
Bequeath'd 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 130
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!
'T were 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 140
To villain-bonds and despot sway.

What can he tell who treads thy shore?
No legend of thine olden time,
No theme on which the muse might soar
High as thine own in days of yore,

When man was worthy of thy clime.
The hearts within thy valleys bred,
The fiery souls that might have led

Thy sons to deeds sublime,

Now crawl from cradle to the grave,
Slavesnay, the bondsmen of a slave,
And callous, save to crime;
Stain'd with each evil that pollutes
Mankind, where least above the brutes;
Without even savage virtue blest,
Without one free or valiant breast,
Still to the neighbouring ports they waft
Proverbial wiles and ancient craft;
In this the subtle Greek is found,
For this, and this alone, renown'd.
In vain might Liberty invoke
The spirit to its bondage broke,
Or raise the neck that courts the yoke:
No more her sorrows I bewail,
Yet this will be a mournful tale,

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Who thundering comes on blackest steed, With slacken'd bit and hoof of speed? Beneath the clattering iron's sound The cavern'd echoes wake around In lash for lash, and bound for bound; The foam that streaks the courser's side Seems gather'd from the ocean-tide. Though weary waves are sunk to rest, There's none within his rider's breast; And though to-morrow's tempest lower, 'T is calmer than thy heart, young Giaour! I know thee not, I loathe thy race, But in thy lineaments I trace What time shall strengthen, not efface: Though young and pale, that sallow front Is scathed by fiery passion's brunt; Though bent on earth thine evil eye, As meteor-like thou glidest by, Right well I view and deem thee one Whom Othman's sons should slay or shun.

On - on he hasten'd, and he drew My gaze of wonder as he flew: Though like a demon of the night He pass'd, and vanish'd from my sight, His aspect and his air impress'd A troubled memory on my breast, And long upon my startled ear Rung his dark courser's hoofs of fear. He spurs his steed; he nears the steep, That, jutting, shadows o'er the deep; He winds around; he hurries by; The rock relieves him from mine eye; For well I ween unwelcome he Whose glance is fix'd on those that flee; And not a star but shines too bright On him who takes such timeless flight.

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He stood some dread was on his face; Soon Hatred settled in its place: It rose not with the reddening flush Of transient Anger's hasty blush, But pale as marble o'er the tomb, Whose ghostly whiteness aids its gloom. His brow was bent, his eye was glazed; 240 He raised his arm, and fiercely raised, And sternly shook his hand on high, As doubting to return or fly: Impatient of his flight delay'd, Here loud his raven charger neigh'd Down glanced that hand, and grasp'd his blade;

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That sound had burst his waking dream,
As Slumber starts at owlet's scream.
The spur hath lanced his courser's sides;
Away, away, for life he rides:
Swift as the hurl'd on high jerreed
Springs to the touch his startled steed;
The rock is doubled, and the shore
Shakes with the clattering tramp nɔ more;
The crag is won, no more is seen
His Christian crest and haughty mien.
'T was but an instant he restrain'd
That fiery barb so sternly rein'd;
'T was but a moment that he stood,
Then sped as if by death pursued:
But in that instant o'er his soul
Winters of Memory seem'd to roll,
And gather in that drop of time
A life of pain, an age of crime.
O'er him who loves, or hates, or fears,
Such moment pours the grief of years:
What felt he then, at once opprest
By all that most distracts the breast

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That pause, which ponder'd o'er his fate,
Oh, who its dreary length shall date! 270
Though in Time's record nearly nought,
It was Eternity to Thought!
For infinite as boundless space

The thought that Conscience must embrace,

Which in itself can comprehend
Woe without name, or hope, or end.

The hour is past, the Giaour is gone;
And did he fly or fall alone?
Woe to that hour he came or went!
The curse for Hassan's sin was sent 280
To turn a palace to a tomb;

He came, he went, like the Simoom,
That harbinger of fate and gloom,
Beneath whose widely-wasting breath
The very cypress droops to death

Dark tree, still sad when others' grief is fled,

The only constant mourner o'er the dead!

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No hand shall close its clasp again.
On desert sands 't were joy to scan
The rudest steps of fellow-man,
So here the very voice of Grief
Might wake an Echo like relief -
At least 't would say, All are not gone;
There lingers Life, though but in one.'
For many a gilded chamber's there,
Which Solitude might well forbear;
Within that dome as yet Decay
Hath slowly work'd her cankering way:
But gloom is gather'd o'er the gate,
Nor there the Fakir's self will wait;
Nor there will wandering Dervise stay,
For bounty cheers not his delay;
Nor there will weary stranger halt
To bless the sacred bread and salt.'
Alike must Wealth and Poverty
Pass heedless and unheeded by,
For Courtesy and Pity died

With Hassan on the mountain side.
His roof, that refuge unto men,
Is Desolation's hungry den.

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The guest flies the hall, and the vassal from

As rising on its purple wing

The insect-queen of eastern spring O'er emerald meadows of Kashmeer Invites the young pursuer near, And leads him on from flower to flower A weary chase and wasted hour, Then leaves him, as it soars on high, With panting heart and tearful eye: So Beauty lures the full-grown child, With hue as bright, and wing as wild; A chase of idle hopes and fears, Begun in folly, closed in tears. If won, to equal ills betray'd, Woe waits the insect and the maid; A life of pain, the loss of peace, From infant's play, and man's caprice: The lovely toy so fiercely sought Hath lost its charm by being caught, For every touch that woo'd its stay Hath brush'd its brightest hues away, Till charm, and hue, and beauty gone, 'T is left to fly or fall alone.

With wounded wing, or bleeding breast, Ah! where shall either victim rest? Can this with faded pinion soar

From rose to tulip as before?

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The Mind, that broods o'er guilty woes,
Is like the Scorpion girt by fire:

In circle narrowing as its glows
The flames around their captive close,
Till inly search'd by thousand throes,
And maddening in her ire,

One sad and sole relief she knows;
The sting she nourish'd for her foes,
Whose venom never yet was vain,
Gives but one pang, and cures all pain,
And darts into her desperate brain; -
So do the dark in soul expire,

Or live like Scorpion girt by fire;

So writhes the mind Remorse hath riven,
Unfit for earth, undoom'd for heaven,
Darkness above, despair beneath,
Around it flame, within it death!

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Black Hassan from the Haram flies, Nor bends on woman's form his eyes; The unwonted chase each hour employs, Yet shares he not the hunter's joys. Not thus was Hassan wont to fly When Leila dwelt in his Serai. Doth Leila there no longer dwell? That tale can only Hassan tell: Strange rumours in our city say Upon that eve she fled away When Rhamazan's last sun was set, And flashing from each minaret Millions of lamps proclaim'd the feast Of Bairam through the boundless East. 'T was then she went as to the bath, Which Hassan vainly search'd in wrath; For she was flown her master's rage In likeness of a Georgian page, And far beyond the Moslem's power Had wrong'd him with the faithless Giaour. Somewhat of this had Hassan deem'd; But still so fond, so fair she seem'd, Too well he trusted to the slave Whose treachery deserved a grave: And on that eve had gone to mosque, And thence to feast in his kiosk.

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Her eye's dark charm 't were vain to tell,

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But gaze on that of the Gazelle,
It will assist thy fancy well;
As large, as languishingly dark,
But Soul beam'd forth in every spark
That darted from beneath the lid,
Bright as the jewel of Giamschid.
Yea, Soul, and should our prophet say
That form was nought but breathing clay,
By Alla! I would answer nay;
Though on Al-Sirat's arch I stood,
Which totters o'er the fiery flood,
With Paradise within my view,
And all his Houris beckoning through.
Oh! who young Leila's glance could read
And keep that portion of his creed,
Which saith that woman is but dust,
A soulless toy for tyrant's lust?
On her might Muftis gaze, and own
That through her eye the Immortal shone;
On her fair cheek's unfading hue
The young pomegranate's blossoms strew
Their bloom in blushes ever new;
Her hair in hyacinthine flow,
When left to roll its folds below,
As midst her handmaids in the hall
She stood superior to them all,
Hath swept the marble where her feet
Gleam'd whiter than the mountain sleet,
Ere from the cloud that gave it birth
It fell, and caught one stain of earth.
The cygnet nobly walks the water;
So moved on earth Circassia's daughter,
The loveliest bird of Franguestan!
As rears her crest the ruffled Swan,
And spurns the wave with wings of pride,
When pass the steps of stranger man

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Along the banks that bound her tide; Thus rose fair Leila's whiter neck: Thus arm'd with beauty would she check Intrusion's glance, till Folly's gaze Shrunk from the charms it meant to praise. Thus high and graceful was her gait; Her heart as tender to her mate;

The sun's last rays are on the hill, And sparkle in the fountain rill, Whose welcome waters, cool and clear, Draw blessings from the mountaineer. Here may the loitering merchant Greek Find that repose 't were vain to seek In cities lodged too near his lord, And trembling for his secret hoard Here may he rest where none can see, In crowds a slave, in deserts free; And with forbidden wine may stain The bowl a Moslem must not drain.

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The foremost Tartar's in the gap, Conspicuous by his yellow cap; The rest in lengthening line the while Wind slowly through the long defile. Above, the mountain rears a peak, Where vultures whet the thirsty beak, And theirs may be a feast to-night Shall tempt them down ere morrow's light; Beneath, a river's wintry stream Has shrunk before the summer beam, And left a channel bleak and bare, Save shrubs that spring to perish there. Each side the midway path there lay Small broken crags of granite gray, By time, or mountain lightning, riven From summits clad in mists of heaven;

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