Their barbarous, yet their not indecent, glee, The long wild locks that to their girdles streamed, While thus in concert they, this lay half sang, half screamed:30 I. 31 TAMBOURGI! Tambourgi! * thy 'larum afar Gives hope to the valiant, and promise of war; 2. Oh! who is more brave than a dark Suliote, To the wolf and the vulture he leaves his wild flock. 3. Shall the sons of Chimari, who never forgive The fault of a friend, bid an enemy live? Let those guns so unerring such vengeance forego? what mark is so fair as the breast of a foe? 4. Macedonia sends forth her invincible race; For a time they abandon the cave and the chase: But those scarfs of blood-red shall be redder, before The sabre is sheathed and the battle is o'er. * Drummer. 5. Then the pirates of Parga that dwell by the waves, And teach the pale Franks what it is to be slaves, Shall leave on the beach the long galley and oar, And track to his covert the captive on shore. 6. I ask not the pleasures that riches supply, My sabre shall win what the feeble must buy; Shall win the young bride with her long flowing hair, And many a maid from her mother shall tear. 7. I love the fair face of the maid in her youth, Her caresses shall lull me, her music shall soothe; Let her bring from the chamber her many-toned lyre, And sing us a song on the fall of her sire. 8. 32 Remember the moment when Previsa fell, 9. I talk not of mercy, I talk not of fear; He neither must know who would serve the Vizier; 10. Dark Muchtar his son to the Danube is sped, Let the yellow-haired (1)Giaours (2) view his horsetail (3) withdread When his Delhis (4) come dashing in blood o'er the banks, How few shall escape from the Muscovite ranks! II. Selictar! (5) unsheath then our chief's scimitar: Ye mountains, that see us descend to the shore!, Shall view us as victors, or view us no more! LXXIII. Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth! 33 In bleak Thermopyla's sepulchral strait― Oh! who that gallant spirit shall resume, Leap from Eurotas' banks, and call thee from the tomb? (1) Yellow is the epithet given to the Russians. (3) Infidel. (4) Horse-tails are the insignia of a Pacha. (4) Horsemen, answering to our forlorn hope. (5) Sword-bearer. LXXIV. Spirit of freedom! when on Phyle's brow Thou sat'st with Thrasybulus and his train, 34 Could'st thou forebode the dismal hour which now Dims the green beauties of thine Attic plain? Not thirty tyrants now enforce the chain, But every carle can lord it o'er thy land; Nor rise thy sons, but idly rail in vain, Trembling beneath the scourge of Turkish hand From birth till death enslaved; in word, in deed unmanned. LXXV. In all save form alone, how changed! and who Who but would deem their bosoms burned anew And many dream withal the hour is nigh That gives them back their fathers' heritage: · For foreign arms and aid they fondly sigh, Nor solely dare encounter hostile rage, Or tear their name defiled, from Slavery's mournful page. LXXVI. Hereditary bondsmen ! know ye not Who would be free themselves must strike the blow? By their right arms the conquest must be wrought? True, they may lay your proud despoilers low, Shades of the Helots! triumph o'er your foe! Greece! change thy lords, thy state is still the same; Thy glorious day is o'er, but not thine years of shame. LXXVII. The city won for Allah from the Giaour, The Giaour from Othman's race again may wrest; Receive the fiery Frank, her former guest; May wind their path of blood along the West; But ne'er will freedom seek this fated soil, 35 But slave succeed to slave, through years of endless toil. LXXVIII. Yet mark their mirth-ere lenten days begin, That penance which their holy rites prepare |