Page images
PDF
EPUB

Earth with her haughty shadow, and display'd,
Until the o'ercanopied horizon fail'd,

Her rushing wings; oh! she who was Almighty hail'd!

SONG OF THE GREEK BARD.

THE Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,-
Where Delos rose, and Phœbus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set.

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
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 Persian's grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.

A king sat on the rocky brow

Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis ;
And ships, by thousands, lay below,
And men and 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?

[blocks in formation]

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, "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 callHow 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 gaveThink 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.

*

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 steepWhere 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!

DESCRIPTION OF A GRECIAN HOLIDAY. HE saw his white walls shining in the sun, His garden trees all shadowy and green : He heard his rivulet's light bubbling run, The distant dog-bark and perceived between The umbrage of the wood so cool and dun The moving figures, and the sparkling sheen Of arms-(in the East all arm)-and various dyes

Of colour'd garbs, as bright as butterflies.

And as the spot where they appear he nears,
Surprised at these unwonted signs of idling,
He hears-alas! no music of the spheres,

But an unhallow'd earthly sound of fiddling! A melody which made him doubt his ears,

The cause being past his guessing or unriddling; A pipe, too, and a drum, and shortly after, A most unoriental roar of laughter.

And still more nearly to the place advancing, Descending rather quickly the declivity, Through the waved branches o'er the green sward glancing

'Midst other indications of festivity.

Seeing a troop of his domestics dancing

Like dervises, who turn as on a pivot, he Perceived it was the Pyrrhic dance so martial, To which the Levantines are very partial.

And further on, a group of Grecian girls,

The first and tallest her white kerchief waving,

Were strung together like a row of pearls;

Link'd hand in hand, and dancing; each too

having

Down her white neck long floating auburn curls(The least of which would set ten poets raving); Their leader sang-and bounded to her song, With choral step and voice, the virgin throng.

And here, assembled cross-legg'd round their trays,

Small social parties just began to dine; Pilaus and meats of all sorts met the gaze,

And flasks of Samian and of Chian wine, And sherbet cooling in the porous vase;

Above them their desert grew on its vine, The orange and pomegranate nodding o'er, Dropp'd in their laps scarce pluck'd, their mellow

store.

A band of children, round a snow-white ram, There wreath his venerable horns with flowers; While peaceful as if still an unwean'd lamb,

The patriarch of the flock all gently cowers His sober head, majestically tame,

Or eats from out the palm, or playful lowers His brow, as if in act to butt, and then Yielding to their small hands, draws back again.

Their classical profiles, and glittering dresses,

Their large black eyes, and soft seraphic cheeks, Crimson as cleft pomegranates, their long tresses, The gesture which enchants, the eye that speaks, The innocence which happy childhood blesses, Made quite a picture of these little Greeks;

« PreviousContinue »