LXXIV. Spirit of freedom! when on Phyle's brow (34) 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. LXXV. In all save form alone, how changed! and who Who but would deem their bosoms burn'd anew And many dream withal the hour is nigh Or tear their name defiled from Slavery's mournful page. LXXVI. Hereditary bondsmen! know ye not Who would be free themselves must strike the blow? True, they may lay your proud despoilers low, Greece! change thy lords, thy state is still the same; Thy glorious day is o'er, but not thine years of shame. LXXVII. The city won for Allah from the Giaour, The Giaour from Othman's race again may wrest; Receive the fiery Frank, her former guest; (35) Or Wahab's rebel brood who dared divest The (36) prophet's tomb of all its pious spoil, But slave succeed to slave through years of endless toil. LXXVIII. Yet mark their mirth-ere lenten days begin, penance That which their holy rites prepare LXXIX. And whose more rife with merriment than thine, Oh Stamboul! once the empress of their reign? Though turbans now pollute Sophia's shrine, And Greece her very altars eyes in vain : (Alas! her woes will still pervade my strain!) Gay were her minstrels once, for free her throng, All felt the common joy they now must feign, Nor oft I've seen such sight, nor heard such song, As woo'd the eye, and thrill'd the Bosphorus along. LXXX. Loud was the lightsome tumult of the shore, Till sparkling billows seem'd to light the banks they lave. LXXXI. Glanced many a light caique along the foam, Oh Love! young Love! bound in thy rosy band, These hours, and only these, redeem Life's years of ill LXXXII. But, midst the throng in merry masquerade, Is source of wayward thought and stern disdain: LXXXIII. This must he feel, the true-born son of Greece, And wield the slavish sickle, not the sword: Ah! Greece! they love thee least who owe thee most; Of hero sires, who shame thy now degenerate horde! |