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 Thou sat'st with Thrasybulus and his train, Couldst thou forebode the dismal hour which now Dims the green beauties of thine Attic plain? Not thirty tyrants now enforce the chain, But every carle can lord it o'er thy land; Nor rise thy sons, but idly rail in vain, Trembling beneath the scourge of Turkish hand; From birth till death enslaved; in word, in deed,

unmann'd.

ΙΟ

In all save form alone, how changed! and who
That marks the fire still sparkling in each eye,
Who would but deem their bosoms burn'd anew
With thy unquenched beam, lost Liberty!
And many dream withal the hour is nigh
That gives them back their fathers' heritage:
For foreign arms and aid they fondly sigh,
Nor solely dare encounter hostile rage,

Or tear their name defiled from Slavery's mournful

page.

20

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! 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;
And the Serai's impenetrable tower
Receive the fiery Frank, her former guest;
Or Wahab's rebel brood, who dared divest
The prophet's tomb of all its pious spoil,
May wind their path of blood along the West;
But ne'er will freedom seek this fated soil,

But slave succeed to slave through years of endless toil.

31

And yet how lovely in thine age of woe,
Land of lost gods and godlike men, art thou!
Thy vales of evergreen, thy hills of snow,
Proclaim thee Nature's varied favourite now:
Thy fanes, thy temples to thy surface bow,
Commingling slowly with heroic earth,
Broke by the share of every rustic plough :
So perish monuments of mortal birth,
So perish all in turn, save well-recorded Worth ;

40

When riseth Lacedemon's hardihood,

When Thebes Epaminondas rears again,

When Athens' children are with hearts endued, When Grecian mothers shall give birth to men, Then may'st thou be restored; but not till then. 50 A thousand years scarce serve to form a state; An hour may lay it in the dust: and when Can man its shatter'd splendour renovate, Recall its virtues back, and vanquish Time and Fate ?

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;
Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields,
Thine olive ripe as when Minerva smiled,
And still his honey'd wealth Hymettus yields;
There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds,
The freeborn wanderer of thy mountain-air;
Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds,
Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare;
Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but Nature still is fair.

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; Unchanged in all except its foreign lord; Preserves alike its bounds and boundless fame The Battle-field, where Persia's victim horde First bow'd beneath the brunt of Hellas' sword, As on the morn to distant Glory dear, When Marathon became a magic word; Which utter'd, to the hearer's eye appear The camp, the host, the fight, the conqueror's career,

The flying Mede, his shaftless broken bow;
The fiery Greek, his red pursuing spear;
Mountains above, Earth's, Ocean's plain below;
Death in the front, Destruction in the rear !
Such was the scene-what now remaineth here?
What sacred trophy marks the hallow'd ground,
Recording Freedom's smile and Asia's tear?
The rifled urn, the violated mound,

The dust thy courser's hoof, rude stranger! spurns around.

100

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.

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.

120

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!

130

BEREAVEMENT

(CANTO II, xcviii)

What is the worst of woes that wait on age?
What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow?
To view each loved one blotted from life's page,
And be alone on earth, as I am now.
Before the Chastener humbly let me bow,
O'er hearts divided and o'er hopes destroy'd:
Roll on, vain days! full reckless may ye flow,
Since Time hath reft whate'er my soul enjoy'd,
And with the ills of Eld mine earlier years alloy'd.

ON LEAVING ENGLAND

(CANTO III, i, ii)

Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child!
ADA! sole daughter of my house and heart?
When last. I saw thy young blue eyes they smiled,
And then we parted,-not as now we part,
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! And the waves bound beneath me as a steed That knows his rider. Welcome to their roar ! Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead ! Though the strain'd mast should quiver as a reed, And the rent canvas fluttering strew the gale, Still must I on; for I am as a weed, Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam to sail Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath

prevail.

ΙΟ