Rhymed Verse:

The Jsles of Greece."

LORD BYRON.

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 Phoebus 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

Islands of the Blest.”

your sires'

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.

B

A king sate 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,

Even as I sing, suffuse my face;
For what is left a 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 Thermopylæ!

What, silent still ? and silent all ?

Ah! no, the voices of the dead Sound like a distant torrent's fall,

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

And answer,

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 cach 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 PolycratesA 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.

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 !

Slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be run,
Along Morea's hills the setting sun :
Not, as in Northern climes, obscurely bright,
But one unclouded blaze of living light!
O’er the hushed deep the yellow beam he throws,
Gilds the green wave, that trembles as it glows.
On old Ægina's rock, and Idra's isle,
The god of gladness sheds his parting smile ;
O’er his own regions lingering, loves to shine,
Though there his altars are no more divine.
Descending fast the mountain shadows kiss
Thy glorious gulf, unconquered Salamis !
Their azure arches through the long expanse
More deeply purpled meet his mellowing glance,

And tenderest tints, along their summits driven, Mark his gay course, and own the hues of heaven ; Till, darkly shaded from the land and deep, Behind his Delphian cliff he sinks to sleep.

On such an eve, his palest beam he cast,
When-Athens ! here thy Wisest looked his last.
How watched thy better sons his farewell ray,
That closed their murdered sage's latest day!
Not yet-not yet-Sol pauses on the hill-
The precious hour of parting lingers still;
But sad his light to agonizing eyes,
And dark the mountain's once delightful dyes;
Gloom o'er the lovely land he seemed to pour,
The land, where Phæbus never frowned before ;
But ere he sank below Cithæron's head,
The cup of woe was quaffed—the spirit fled;
The soul of him who scorned to fear or fly-
Who lived and died, as none can live or die.

But lo! from high Hymettus to the plain,
The queen of night asserts her silent reign.
No murky vapour, herald of the storm,
Hides her fair face, nor girds her glowing form ;
With cornice glimmering as the moonbeams play,
There the white column greets her grateful ray,
And, bright around with quivering beams beset,
Her emblem sparkles o'er the minaret ;
The groves of olive scattered dark and wide
Where meek Cephisus pours his scanty tide,
The cypress saddening

by the sacred mosque,
The gleaming turret of the gay kiosk,
And,

dun and sombre rnid the holy calm, Near Theseus' fane yon solitary palm, All tinged with varied hues, arrest the eye-. And dull were his that passed them heedless by.