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, Along Morea's hills the setting sun; Not, as in Northern climes, obscurely bright, But one unclouded blaze of living light! O’er the hush'd deep the yellow beam he throws, Gilds the green wave, that trembles as it glows. On old Ægina's rock, and Idra's isle, The god of gladness sheds his parting smile; O'er his own regions lingering, loves to shine, Though there his altars are no more divine. Descending fast, the mountain shadows kiss Thy glorious gulf, unconquer'd Salamis !

Their azure arches through the long expanse More deeply purpled meet his mellowing glance, And tenderest tints, along their summits driven, Mark his gay course--and own the hues of heaven; Till, darkly shaded from the land and deep, Behind his Delphian cliff he sinks to sleep.

On such an eve his palest beam he cast, When-Athens ! here thy Wisest looked his last. How watch'd thy better sons his farewell ray, That closed their murdered sage's latest day! Not yet_not yet_Sol pauses on the hillThe precious hour of parting lingers still ; But sad his light to agonizing eyes, And dark the mountain's once delightful dyes. Gloom o'er the lovely land he seem'd to pour, The land where Phæbus never frown'd before, But ere he sank below Cithæron's head, The cup of woe was quaff'd—the spirit fled ; The soul of him who scorn'd to fear or flyWho lived and died as none can live or die !

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, nor girds her glowing form ; With cornice glimmering as the moonbeams play, There the white column greets her grateful ray, And, bright around with quivering beams beset, Her emblem sparkles o'er the minaret : The groves of olive scattered dark and wide, Where meek Cephisus pours his scanty tide, The cypress saddening by the sacred mosque, The gleaming turret of the gay kiosk, And, dun and sombre mid the holy calm, Near Theseus' fane yon solitary palm, All tinged with varied hues arrest the eyeAnd dull were his that pass'd them heedless by.

Again the Ægean, heard no more afar,
Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war;
Again his waves in milder tints unfold
Their long array of sapphire and of gold,
Mixed with the shades of many a distant isle,
That frown-where gentler ocean seems to smile.

SONG OF A GREEK.
The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece !

Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,

Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set.
The Scian and the Teian muse,

The hero's harp, the lover's lute,
Have found the fame your shores refuse;

Their place of birth alone is mute

To sounds which echo further west
Than your sires' “ Islands of the Blest.”
The mountains look on Marathon_1

And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,

I dream'd that Greece might still be free; For standing on the Persians' grave, I could not deem myself a slave. A king sate on the rocky brow

Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis; And ships, by thousands, lay below,

And men in nations ;-all were his ! He counted them at break of dayAnd when the sun set where were they ? And where are they! and where art thou,

My country ? On thy voiceless shore
The heroic lay is tuneless now-

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 Thermopylæ !

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,
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 !
Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,

And shed the blood of Scio's vine !
Hark! rising to the ignoble call
How answers each bold bacchanal !
You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet,

Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone !
Of two such lessons, why forget

The nobler and the manlier one ? You have the letters Cadmus gave Think ye he meant them for a slave ? Fill high the bowl with Samian wine !

We will not think of themes like these : It made Anacreon's song divine :

He served_but served Polycrates
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 !

On Suli's rock, and Parga's shore,