Not yet not yet-Sol pauses on the hill, And dark the mountain's once delightful dyes; But, lo! from high Hymettus to the plain The queen of night asserts her silent reign; No murky vapour, herald of the storm, Hides her fair face, or girds her glowing form. The groves of olive scatter'd dark and wide, The cypress saddening by the sacred mosque, All, tinged with varied hues, arrest the eye; Again the Ægean, heard no more afar, Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war; Again his waves in milder tints unfold Their long expanse of sapphire and of gold, Mix'd with the shades of many a distant isle, That frown, where gentler ocean deigns to smile. THE SAME. (From THE GIAOUR.) FAIR clime! where every season smiles There mildly dimpling, Ocean's cheek That wakes and wafts the odours there! The maid for whom his melody, His thousand songs are heard on high, Blooms blushing to her lover's tale : His queen, the garden queen, his Rose, Unbent by winds, unchill'd by snows, Far from the winters of the west, By every breeze and season blest, Returns the sweets by nature given In softest incense back to heaven; And grateful yields that smiling sky Her fairest hue and fragrant sigh. And many a summer flower is there, And many a shade that love might share, And many a grotto, meant for rest, That holds the pirate for a guest; Whose bark in sheltering cove below Is heard, and seen the evening star; There man, enamour'd of distress, And trample, brute-like, o'er each flower That tasks not one laborious hour; To bloom along the fairy land, It is as though the fiends prevail'd And, fix'd on heavenly thrones, should dwell So soft the scene, so form'd for joy, So curst the tyrants that destroy! He who hath bent him o'er the dead Ere the first day of death is fled, (Before Decay's effacing fingers Have swept the lines where beauty lingers,) The rapture of repose that's there, That fires not, wins not, weeps not, now, The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon; That parts not quite with parting breath; A gilded halo hovering round decay, Spark of that flame, perchance of heavenly birth, Clime of the unforgotten brave! Whose land from plain to mountain-cave G 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 freePronounce 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 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. |