GREECE (CANTO II, lxxiii-lxxvii, lxxxiv-xciii) Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth! Immortal, though no more; though fallen, great i Who now shall lead thy scatter'd children forth, And long accustom❜d bondage uncreate ? Not such thy sons who whilome did await, The hopeless warriors of a willing doom, In bleak Thermopyla's sepulchral straitOh! who that gallant spirit shall resume, Leap from Eurotas' banks, and call thee from the tomb? Spirit of freedom! when on Phyle's brow ΙΟ Couldst thou forebode the dismal hour which now Dims the green beauties of thine Attic plain? Trembling beneath the scourge of Turkish hand; From birth till death enslaved; in word, in deed, unmann'd. In all save form alone, how changed! and who 20 Or tear their name defiled from Slavery's mournful page. Hereditary bondsmen! know ye not Who would be free themselves must strike the blow? By their right arms the conquest must be wrought? Will Gaul or Muscovite redress ye? no! 31 True, they may lay your proud despoilers low, But not for you will Freedom's altars flame. Shades of the Helots! triumph o'er your foe! Greece! change thy lords, thy state is still the same; Thy glorious day is o'er, but not thy years of shame. The city won for Allah from the Giaour, The Giaour from Othman's race again may wrest; Receive the fiery Frank, her former guest; 40 But slave succeed to slave through years of endless toil. When riseth Lacedemon's hardihood, When Athens' children are with hearts endued, and when Can man its shatter'd splendour renovate, Recall its virtues back, and vanquish Time and Fate ? And yet how lovely in thine age of woe, So perish all in turn, save well-recorded Worth; 60 Save where some solitary column mourns Above its prostrate brethren of the cave; Save where Tritonia's airy shrine adorns Colonna's cliff, and gleams along the wave; Save o'er some warrior's half-forgotten grave, Where the gray stones and unmolested grass Ages, but not oblivion, feebly brave; While strangers only not regardless pass, Lingering like me, perchance, to gaze, and sigh “Alas!” Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild; 70 80 Where'er we tread 'tis haunted, holy ground; No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould, But one vast realm of wonder spreads around, And all the Muse's tales seem truly told, Till the sense aches with gazing to behold The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon; Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold Defies the power which crush'd thy temples gone : Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Marathon. The sun, the soil, but not the slave, the same; The camp, the host, the fight, the conqueror's career, The flying Mede, his shaftless broken bow; 100 The dust thy courser's hoof, rude stranger! spurns around. Yet to the remnants of thy splendour past Shall pilgrims, pensive, but unwearied, throng; 110 Long shall the voyager, with th' Ionian blast, Hail the bright clime of battle and of song; Long shall thine annals and immortal tongue Fill with thy fame the youth of many a shore; Boast of the aged lesson of the young! Which sages venerate and bards adore, As Pallas and the Muse unveil their awful lore. ; 120 The parted bosom clings to wonted home, If aught that's kindred cheer the welcome hearth He that is lonely, hither let him roam, And gaze complacent on congenial earth. Greece is no lightsome land of social mirth : But he whom Sadness sootheth may abide, And scarce regret the region of his birth, When wandering slow by Delphi's sacred side, Or gazing o'er the plains where Greek and Persian died. 130 Let such approach this consecrated land, And pass in peace along the magic waste; But spare its relics-let no busy hand Deface the scenes, already how defaced! Not for such purpose were these altars placed : Revere the remnants nations once revered : So may our country's name be undisgraced, So may'st thou prosper where thy youth was rear'd, By every honest joy of love and life endear'd! BEREAVEMENT (CANTO II, xcviii) What is the worst of woes that wait on age? Before the Chastener humbly let me bow, ON LEAVING ENGLAND (CANTO III, i, ii) Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child! But with a hope.— Awaking with a start, The waters heave around me; and on high The winds lift up their voices: I depart, Whither I know not; but the hour 's gone by, When Albion's lessening shores could grieve or glad mine eye. Once more upon the waters! yet once more! Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead! Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam to sail ΤΟ Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail. |