LXXIX. And whose more rife with merriment than thine, LXXX. Loud was the lightsome tumult of the shore, The Queen of tides on high consenting shone, A brighter glance her form reflected gave, Till sparkling billows seemed to light the banks they lave. LXXXI. Glanced many a light caique along the foam, Exchanged the look few bosoms may withstand, These hours, and only these, redeem Life's years of ill! LXXXII. But, midst the throng in merry masquerade, To such the gentle murmurs of the main And long to change the robe of revel for the shroud! LXXXIII. This must he feel, the true-born son of Greece; And wield the slavish sickle, not the sword: Ah! Greece! they love thee least who owe thee most; Their birth, their blood, and that sublime record Of hero sires, who shame, thy now degenerate horde! LXXXIV. When riseth Lacedemon's hardihood, When Thebes, Epaminondas, rears again, When Athens' children, are with hearts endued, When Grecian mothers, shall give birth to men, Then may'st thou be restored; but not till then. A thousand years scarce serve to form a state; An hour may lay it in the dust and when Can man its shattered splendour renovate, Recal its virtues back and vanquish Time and Fate? LXXXV. : And yet how lovely in thine of Land of lost gods and godlike men! art thou! So perish all in turn, save well-recorded Worth; LXXXVI. Save where some solitary column mourns Above its prostate brethren of the cave; 38 Save where Tritonia's airy shrine adorns Colonna's cliff, and gleams along the wave; Save o'er some warrior's half-forgotten grave, While strangers only not regardless pass, Lingering like me, perchance, to gaze, and sigh «Alas! » LXXXVII. Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild; Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields, Thine olive ripe as when Minerva smiled, And still his honied wealth Hymettus yields; LXXXVIII.. Where'er we tread 'tis haunted, holy ground; But one vast realm of wonder spreads around, LXXXIX. The sun, the soil, but not the slave, the same; Unchanged in all except its foreign lord- When Marathon became a magic word; 39 The camp, the host, the fight, the conqueror's career, XC. The flying Mede, his shaftless broken bow; Mountains above, Earth's Ocean's plain below; Death in the front, Destruction in the rear! Such was the scene -what now remaineth here? What sacred trophy marks the hallowed ground, The rifled urn, the violated mound, The dust thy courser's hoof, rude stranger? spurns around. XCI. Yet to the remnants of thy splendour past Shall pilgrims, pensive, but unwearied, throng; ! |