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, And Marathon looks on the sea; And musing there an hour alone, I dreamed that Greece might still be free; For, standing on the Persians' grave, I could not think 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 day- And 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 linked among a fettered 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 Thermopyle!
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, Exists the remnant of a line Such as the Doric mothers bore; And there, perhaps, some seed is sown, The Heracleidan blood might own.
Trust not for freedom to the Franks- They have a king who buys and sells; In native swords, and native ranks, The only hope of courage dwells; But Turkish force, and Latin fraud, Would break your shield, however broad.
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! Our virgins dance beneath the shade- I see their glorious black eyes shine; But gazing on each glowing maid, My own the burning tear-drop laves, To think such breasts must suckle slaves.
Place me on Sunium's marbled steep, Where nothing, save the waves and I, May hear our mutual murmurs sweep; There, swan-like, let me sing and die: A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine- Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!
CCII. HELLAS
THE world's great age begins anew, The golden years return, The earth doth like a snake renew Her winter weeds outworn: Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam, Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.
A brighter Hellas rears its mountains From waves serener far; A new Peneus rolls his fountains Against the morning star.
Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep.
A loftier Argo cleaves the main, Fraught with a later prize; Another Orpheus sings again, And loves, and weeps, and dies.
A new Ulysses leaves once more Calypso for his native shore.
O write no more the tale of Troy, If earth Death's scroll must be! Nor mix with Laian rage the joy Which dawns upon the free: Although a subtler Sphinx renew Riddles of death Thebes never knew.
Another Athens shall arise, And to remoter time Bequeath, like sunset to the skies, The splendour of its prime; And leave, if nought so bright may live, All earth can take or Heaven can give.
O cease! must hate and death return? Cease! must men kill and die? Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn Of bitter prophecy.
The world is weary of the past, O might it die or rest at last!
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