An envy of the isles, a pleasure-house Of Earth having assumed its form, then grown The lampless halls, and when they fade, the sky And, day and night, aloof, from the high towers Possessing and possest by all that is Our breath shall intermix, our bosoms bound, Of waves, flowers, clouds, woods, rocks, and all that we Which boil under our being's inmost cells, Read in their smiles, and call reality. This isle and house are mine, and I have vow'd In thoughts and joys which sleep, but cannot die, Round the evening tower, and the young stars glance The mossy mountains, where the blue heavens bend The fountains of our deepest life, shall be Confused in passion's golden purity, As mountain-springs under the morning Sun. In one another's substance finding food, The winged words on which my soul would pierce 170 Hellas; A LYRICAL DRAMA. ΜΑΝΤΣ ΕΙΜ' ΕΣΘΛΩΝ ΑΓΩΝΩΝ. OEDIP. Colon. TO HIS EXCELLENCY PRINCE ALEXANDER MAVROCORDATO, 15 INSCRIBED AS AN IMPERFECT TOKEN OF THE ADMIRATION, SYMPATHY, AND FRIENDSHIP OF THE AUTHOR PREFACE. THE poem of Hellas, written at the suggestion of the events of the moment, is a mere improvise, and derives its interest (should it be found to possess any) solely from the intense sympathy which the Author feels with the cause he would celebrate. The subject in its present state is insusceptible of being treated otherwise than lyrically, and if I have called this poem a drama from the circumstance of its being composed in dialogue, the licence is not greater than that which has been assumed by other poets, who have called their productions epics, only because they have been divided into twelve or twenty-four books. The Persæ of Eschylus afforded me the first model of my conception, although the decision of the glorious contest now waging in Greece being yet suspended, forbids a catastrophe parallel to the return of Xerxes and the desolation of the Persians. I have, therefore, contented myself with exhibiting a series of lyric pictures, and with having wrought upon the curtain of futurity, which falls upon the unfinished scene, such figures of indistinct and visionary delineation as suggest the final triumph of the Greek cause as a portion of the cause of civilization and social improvement. The drama (if drama it must be called) is, however, so inartificial that I doubt whether, if recited on the Thespian waggon to an Athenian village at the Dionysiaca, it would have obtained the prize of the goat. I shall bear with equanimity any punishment greater than the loss of such a reward which the Aristarchi of the hour may think fit to inflict. tions of the most exalted courage have been performed by the Greeks-that they have gained more than one naval victory, and that their defeat in Wallachia was signalized by circumstances of heroism more glorious even than victory. The apathy of the rulers of the civilized world, to the astonishing circumstance of the descendants of that nation to which they owe their civilization-rising as it something perwere from the ashes of their ruin, fectly inexplicable to a mere spectator of the shows of We are all Greeks. Our laws, our this mortal scene. literature, our religion, our arts, have their root in Greece. But for Greece-Rome the instructor, the conqueror, or the metropolis of our ancestors, would have spread no illumination with her arms, and we might still have been savages and idolaters; or, what is worse, might have arrived at such a stagnant and miserable state of social institution as China and Japan possess. The human form and the human mind attained to a perfection in Greece which has impressed its image on those faultless productions whose very fragments are the despair of modern art, and has propagated impulses which cannot cease, through a thousand channels of manifest or imperceptible operation, to ennoble and delight mankind until the extinction of the race. The modern Greek is the descendant of those glorious beings whom the imagination almost refuses to figure to itself as belonging to our kind; and he inherits much of their sensibility, their rapidity of conception, their enthusiasm, and their courage. If in many instances he is degraded by moral and political slavery to the practice of the basest vices it engenders, and that below the level of ordinary degradation; let us reflect that the The only goat-song which I have yet attempted has, I corruption of the best produces the worst, and that haconfess, in spite of the unfavourable nature of the sub-bits which subsist only in relation to a peculiar state ject, received a greater and a more valuable portion of applause than I expected, or than it deserved. Common fame is the only authority which I can allege for the details which form the basis of the poem, and I must trespass upon the forgiveness of my readers for the display of newspaper erudition to which I have been reduced. Undoubtedly, until the conclusion of the war, it will be impossible to obtain an account of it sufficiently authentic for historical materials; but poets have their privilege, and it is unquestionable that ac of social institution may be expected to cease, as soon as that relation is dissolved. In fact, the Greeks, since the admirable novel of Anastatius could have been a faithful picture of their manners, have undergone most important changes; the flower of their youth, returning to their country from the universities of Italy, Germany and France, have communicated to their fellowcitizens the latest results of that social perfection of which their ancestors were the original source. university of Chios contained before the breaking out The of the revolution eight hundred students, and among them several Germans andƒAmericans. The munificence and energy of many of the Greek Princes and merchants, directed to the renovation of their country with a spirit and a wisdom which has few examples, is above all praise. The English permit their own oppressors to act according to their natural sympathy with the Turkish tyrant, and to brand upon their name the indelible blot of an alliance with the enemies of domestic happiness, of Christianity and civilization. Russia desires to possess, not to liberate Greece; and is contented to see the Turks, its natural enemies, and the Greeks, its intended slaves, enfeeble each other, until one or both fall into its net. The wise and generous policy of England would have consisted in establishing the independence of Greece and in maintaining it both against Russia and the Turk-but when was the oppressor generous or just? The Spanish Peninsula is already free. France is tranquil in the enjoyment of a partial exemption, from the abuses which its unnatural and feeble government are vainly attempting to revive. The seed of blood and misery has been sown in Italy, and a more vigorous race is arising to go forth to the harvest. The world waits only the news of a revolution of Germany, to see the tyrants who have pinnacled themselves on its supineness precipitated into the ruin from which they shall never arise. Well do these destroyers of mankind know their enemy, when they impute the insurrection in Greece to the same spirit before which they tremble throughout the rest of Europe; and that enemy well knows the power and cunning of its opponents, and watches the moment of their approaching weakness and inevitable division, to wrest the bloody sceptres from their grasp. DRAMATÍS PERSONÆ. MAHMUD. HASSAN. DAOOD. AHASUERUS, a Jew. Cuonus of Greek captive Women. Messengers, Slaves, and Attendants. SCENE,-Constantinople. TIME,-Sunset. HELLAS. SCENE, a Terrace on the Seraglio. MAHMUD (sleeping), an Indian Slave sitting beside his Couch. CHORUS OF GREEK CAPTIVE WOMEN. We strew these opiate flowers On thy restless pillow, They were stript from Orient bowers, By the Indian billow. Be thy sleep Calm and deep, Like theirs who fell-not ours who weep! Its unwearied wings could fan From age to age, from man to man From the West swift Freedom came, Against the course of heaven and doom A second sun array'd in flame; In the mountain cedar's hair, Of her wings through the wild air, A desert, or a Paradise; Let the beautiful and the brave Share her glory, or a grave. SEMICHORUS 1. With the gifts of gladness Greece did thy cradle strew. SEMICHORUS II. With the tears of sadness Greece did thy shroud bedew. SEMICHORUS I. With an orphan's affection eyes. She follow'd thy bier through time; SEMICHORUS II. And at thy resurrection SEMICHORUS 1. If Heaven should resume thee, SEMICHORUS II. If Hell should entomb thee; To Hell shall her high hearts bend. SEMICHORUS I. If Annihilation Milan was the centre of the resistance of the Lombard league against the Austrian tyrant. Frederic Barbarossa burnt the city to the ground, but liberty lived in its ashes, and it rose like an exhalation from its rain.-See SISMONDI's Histoires des Républiques Italiennes," a book which has done much towards awakening the Italians to an imitation of their great ancestors. The Jew of whom I spake is old,—so old Made known to him, where he dwells in a sea-cavern 'Mid the Demonesi, less accessible Than thou or God! He who would question him Through the soft twilight to the Bosphorus: The Jew appears. Few dare, and few who dare, MAHMUD. [A shout without. Evil, doubtless; like all human sounds. Let me converse with spirits. HASSAN. That shout again. MAHMUD. This Jew whom thou hast summon'd HASSAN. Will be here MAHMUD. And Death's dark chasm hurrying to and fro, In the brief dust and light New Gods, new laws receive; Bright or dim are they, as the robes they last On Death's bare ribs had cast. A power from the unknown God; The thorns of death and shame. Which the orient planet animates with light; Like blood-hounds mild and tame, Nor prey'd until their lord had taken flight. The moon of Mahomet Arose, and it shall set: While blazon'd as on heaven's immortal noon The cross leads generations on. Swift as the radiant shapes of sleep From one whose dreams are paradise, Fly when the fond wretch wakes to weep, And day peers forth with her blank eyes! So fleet, so faint, so fair, The powers of earth and air Fled from the folding star of Bethlehem : Apollo, Pan, and Love, And even Olympian Jove Grew weak, for killing Truth had glared on them. Our hills, and seas, and streams, Dispeopled of their dreams, Their waters turn'd to blood, their dew to tears, Wail'd for the golden years. Enter MAHMUD, HASSAN, DAOOD, and others. MAHMUD. More gold? our ancestors bought gold with victory, And shall I sell it for defeat? exalted existence, according to the degree of perfection which every distinct intelligence may have attained. Let it not be supposed that I mean to dogmatize upon a subject concerning which all men are equally ignorant, or that I think the Gordian knot of the origin of evil can be disentangled by that or any similar assertions. The received hypothesis of a Being resembling men in the moral attributes of his nature, having called as out of non-existence, and after inflicting on us the misery of the commission of error, should superadd that of the punishment and the privations consequent upon it, still would remain inexplicable and incredible. That there is a true solution of the riddle, and that in our present state that solution is unattainable by us, are propositions which may be regarded as equally certain; meanwhile, as it is the province of the poet to attach himself to those ideas which exalt and ennoble bumanity, let him be permitted to have conjectured the condition of that futurity towards which we are all impelled by an inextinguishable thirst for immortality. Until better arguments can be produced than sophisms which disgrace the cause, this desire itself must remain the strongest and the only presumption that eternity is the nheritance of every thinking being. |
