EXTRACTS FROM DON JUAN. THE ISLES OF GREECE.* THE isles of Greece, the isles of Greece! The Scian and the Teian muse, The bero's harp, the lover's lute, The mountains look on Marathon- I dream'd that Greece might still be free; A king sat on the rocky brow Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis; And where are they? and where art thou, The heroic bosom beats no more! The Pieces following, to the end, are, from their great beauty and unobjectionable character, extracted from Don Juan. The "Islands of the Blest," of the Greek poets were supposed to have been the Cage de Verd Islands or the Canaries. I "Deep were the groans of Xerxes, when he saw This havoc; for his seat, a lofty mound Commanding the wide sea, o'erlook'd the hosts, And through his troops embattled on the sho 'Tis something, in the dearth of fame, Even as I sing, suffuse my face; Must we but weep o'er days more blest? What, silent still? and silent all? Ah! no;-the voices of the dead Sound like a distant torrent's fall, And answer, "Let one living head, In vain-in vain; strike other chords; And shed the blood of Scio's vine! Hark! rising to the ignoble callllow answers each bold Bacchanal ! You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet, The nobler and the manlier one? Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! He served but served Polycrates- 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! Such as the Doric mothers bore; Trust not for freedom to the Franks- Where nothing save the waves and I, FAME. WHAT is the end of Fame! "Tis but to fill Some liken it to climbing up a hill, Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in vapour; For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill, And bards burn what they call their "midnight tapor," To have, when the original is dust, A name, a wretched picture, and worse bust. What are the hopes of man? Old Egypt's King And largest, thinking it was just the thing To keep his memory whole, and mummy hid; But somebody or other rummaging Burglariously broke his coffin's lid; Let not a monument give you or me hopes, THE SHIPWRECK. THE wind Increased at night, until it blew a gale; For sailors are, in fact, a different kind : At sunset they began to take in sail, For the sky show'd it would come on to blow, At one o'clock the wind with sudden shift Threw the ship right into the trough of the ses, One gang of people instantly was put Upon the pumps, and the remainder set Still their salvation was an even bet: The water rush'd through in a way quite puzzling, While they thrust sheets, shirts, jackets, bales of muslia, Into the opening; but all such ingredients Would have been vain, and they must have gone down Despite of all their efforts and expedients, But for the pumps; I'm glad to make them known To all the brother tars who may have need hence; For fifty to.. of water were upthrown By them per hour, and they had all been undone, As day advanced, the weather seem'd to abate, A squall came on, and while some guns broke loose, A gust-which all descriptive power transcendsLaid with one blast the ship on her beam ends. There she lay, motionless, and seem'd upset ; For they remember battles, fires, and wrecks, Or breaks their hopes, or hearts, or heads, or necks: Thus drownings are much talk'd of by the divers, And swimmers, who may chance to be survivors. Immediately the masts were cut away, Both main and mizen; first the mizen went, The main-mast follow'd: but the ship still lay Like a mere log, and baffled our intent. Foremast and bowsprit were cut down, and they Eased her at last (although we never meant To part with all till every hope was blighted), And then with violence the old ship righted. It may be easily supposed, while this Was going on, some people were unquiet, |