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? 'T is 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 Thermopyla! What, silent still? and silent all? Ah! no; the voices of the dead Sound like a distant torrent's fall, And answer, But one arise, - "Let one living head, we come, we come!" 'T is 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, The nobler and the manlier one? Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! 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! Such as the Doric mothers bore; Trust not for freedom to the Franks - The only hope of courage dwells; Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! Place me on Sunium's marbled steep, LINES TO A LADY WEEPING. WEEP, daughter of a royal line, A Sire's disgrace, a realm's decay; Ah! happy if each tear of thine Could wash a father's fault away! Weep for thy tears are Virtue's tears Auspicious to these suffering isles; And be each drop in future years Repaid thee by thy people's smiles! 1 The Princess Charlotte. DEATH OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. (CHILDE HAROLD, Canto iv. Stanzas 167-172.) HARK! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds, With some deep and immedicable wound; Through storm and darkness yawns the rending ground, She clasps a babe, to whom her breast yields no relief. Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou? In the sad midnight, while thy heart still bled, Death hush'd that pang forever: with thee fled Which fill'd the imperial isles so full it seem'd to cloy. Peasants bring forth in safety. — Can it be, Oh thou that wert so happy, so adored! Those who weep not for kings shall weep for thee, And Freedom's heart, grown heavy, cease to hoard Her many griefs for ONE; for she had pour'd Her orisons for thee, and o'er thy head Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made; Her and her hoped-for seed, whose promise seem'd Like stars to shepherds' eyes:-'t was but a meteor beam'd. Woe unto us, not her; for she sleeps well: Which from the birth of monarchy hath rung Within the opposing scale, which crushes soon or late, These might have been her destiny; but no, |