THE ISLES OF GREECE. (SONG OF A GREEK.) THE isles of Greece, the isles of Greece ! The Scian and the Teian muse, The hero's harp, the lover's lute, Have found the fame your shores refuse Their place of birth alone is mute To sounds which echo further west The mountains look on Marathon- ; I dream'd that Greece might still be free; For standing on the Persians' grave, I could not deem myself a slave. A king sate on the rocky brow Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis; And ships, by thousands, lay below, F 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, Even as I sing, suffuse my face; Must we but weep o'er days more blest? What, silent still? and silent all? 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, 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- Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! But gazing on each glowing maid, 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 mineDash down yon cup of Samian wine! LINES TO A LADY WEEPING.1 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 for ever: 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! |