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A king sat 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 dayAnd 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,

Ev'n 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, "Let one living head,
But one, arise-we come, we come!"
'Tis but the living who are dumb.

THE ISLES OF GREECE.

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.

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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!

LORD BYRON.

Greece.

ET are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild,

YET

Sweet are thy groves and verdant are thy fields.

Thine olive ripe as when Minerva smiled;

And still his honeyed wealth Hymettus yields.
There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds,
The free-born wanderer of thy mountain air;
Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds;
Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare;
Art, glory, freedom fail, but nature still is fair.

LORD BYRon.

ENSLAVED GREECE.

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Enslaved Greece.

E who hath bent him o'er the dead
Ere the first day of death is fled,—

(The first dark day of nothingness,

The last of danger and distress)—
Before Decay's effacing fingers

Have swept the lines where beauty lingers;
And marked the mild, angelic air,

The rapture of repose that's there,

The fixed, yet tender traits that streak
The languor of the placid cheek;
And-but for that sad, shrouded eye,
That fires not, wins not, weeps not now,-—
And but for that chill, changeless brow
Where cold Obstruction's apathy

Appals the gazing mourner's heart,
As if to him it could impart

The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon,—
Yes, but for these and these alone,
Some moments, ay, one treacherous hour,
We still might doubt the tyrant's power;

So fair, so calm, so softly sealed,
The first, last look by Death revealed!
Such is the aspect of this shore:

'Tis Greece, but living Greece no more!
So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,

We start-for soul is wanting there.

Hers is the loveliness in death

That parts not quite with parting breath:

But beauty with that fearful bloom,
That here which haunts it to the tomb;
Expression's last receding ray,

A gilded halo hovering round decay,

The farewell beam of Feeling passed away!

Spark of that flame, perchance of heavenly birth,

Which gleams, but warms no more its cherished earth!

Clime of the unforgotten brave !

Whose land, from plain to mountain-cave,
Was Freedom's home, or Glory's grave!
Shrine of the mighty! can it be
That this is all remains of thee?
Approach, thou craven, crouching slave!
Say, is not this Thermopylæ ?

These waters blue that round you lave,—
O servile offspring of the free-
Pronounce--what sea, what shore is this?
The gulf, the rock of Salamis !

These scenes, their story not unknown,
Arise, and make again your own!
Snatch from the ashes of your sires
The embers of their former fires;
And he who in the strife expires
Will add to theirs a name of fear
That Tyranny shall quake to hear,
And leave his sons a hope, a fame,
They too will rather die than shame:
For Freedom's battle once begun,
Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, is ever won.
Bear witness, Greece, thy living page!
Attest it many a deathless age!
While kings, in dusky darkness hid,
Have left a nameless pyramid,

Thy heroes-though the general doom
Hath swept the column from their tomb,-

A mightier monument command,
The mountains of their native land!
There points the Muse to stranger's eye
The graves of those-that cannot die!

LORD BYRON

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