'Tis something, in the dearth of fame, Though link'd among a fetter'd race, To feel at least a patriot's shame,

Even 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 Thermopylæ !

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.

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.

Trust not for freedom to the FranksThey 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 mineDash down yon cup of Samian wine!

LORD BYRON

297

UNIVERSITY OF

HAIDEE AND JUAN.

CALIFORNIA.

[From Don Juan. Canto IV.]

Nothing so difficult as a beginning

In poesy, unless perhaps the end;

For oftentimes when Pegasus seems winning

The race, he sprains a wing, and down we tend, Like Lucifer when hurl'd from heaven for sinning; Our sin the same, and hard as his to mend, Being pride, which leads the mind to soar too far, Till our own weakness shows us what we are.

But time, which brings all beings to their level,
And sharp Adversity, will teach at last
Man, and, as we would hope, -perhaps the devil,
That neither of their intellects are vast:
While youth's hot wishes in our red veins revel,
We know not this-the blood flows on too fast:
But as the torrent widens towards the ocean,
We ponder deeply on each past emotion.

As boy, I thought myself a clever fellow,

And wish'd that others held the same opinion: They took it up when my days grew more mellow, And other minds acknowledged my dominion; Now my sere fancy 'falls into the yellow

Leaf,' and Imagination droops her pinion, And the sad truth which hovers o'er my desk Turns what was once romantic to burlesque.

And if I laugh at any mortal thing,

'Tis that I may not weep; and if I weep, 'Tis that our nature cannot always bring

Itself to apathy, for we must steep

Our hearts first in the depths of Lethe's spring,
Ere what we least wish to behold will sleep:
Thetis baptized her mortal son in Styx;

A mortal mother would on Lethe fix.

Some have accused me of a strange design
Against the creed and morals of the land,
And trace it in this poem every line,

I don't pretend that I quite understand
My own meaning when I would be very fine;
But the fact is that I have nothing plann'd,
Unless it were to be a moment merry,
A novel word in my vocabulary.

To the kind reader of our sober clime
This way of writing will appear exotic;

Pulci was sire of the half-serious rhyme,

Who sang when chivalry was more Quixotic,

And revell'd in the fancies of the time,

True knights, chaste dames, huge giants, kings despotic, But all these, save the last, being obsolete,

I chose a modern subject as more meet.

How I have treated it, I do not know;

Perhaps no better than they have treated me,

Who have imputed such designs as show

Not what they saw, but what they wished to see;

But if it gives them pleasure, be it so,

This is a liberal age, and thoughts are free:

Meantime Apollo plucks me by the ear,

And tells me to resume my story here.

Young Juan and his lady-love were left

To their own hearts' most sweet society; Even Time the pitiless in sorrow cleft

With his rude scythe such gentle bosoms; he Sigh'd to behold them of their hours bereft,

Though foe to love; and yet they could not be Meant to grow old, but die in happy spring, Before one harm or hope had taken wing.

Their faces were not made for wrinkles, their

Pure blood to stagnate, their great hearts to fail; The blank grey was not made to blast their hair, But like the climes that know nor snow nor hail,

They were all summer; lightning might assail
And shiver them to ashes, but to trail
A long and snake-like life of dull decay
Was not for them-they had too little clay.

They were alone once more; for them to be
Thus was another Eden; they were never
Weary, unless when separate: the tree

Cut from its forest root of years- the river
Damm'd from its fountain-the child from the knee
And breast maternal wean'd at once for ever,-
Would wither less than these two torn apart;
Alas! there is no instinct like the heart-

The heart-which may be broken: happy they!
Thrice fortunate! who of that fragile mould,
The precious porcelain of human clay,

Break with the first fall: they can ne'er behold
The long year link'd with heavy day on day,

And all which must be borne, and never told; While life's strange principle will often lie Deepest in those who long the most to die.

'Whom the gods love die young' was said of yore, And many deaths do they escape by this:

The death of friends, and that which slays even moreThe death of friendship, love, youth, all that is, Except mere breath; and since the silent shore

Awaits at last even those who longest miss The old archer's shafts, perhaps the early grave Which men weep over may be meant to save.

Haidée and Juan thought not of the dead.

The heavens, and earth, and air, seem'd made for them: They found no fault with Time, save that he fled;

They saw not in themselves aught to condemn ;

Each was the other's mirror, and but read

Joy sparkling in their dark eyes like a gem, And knew such brightness was but the reflection Of their exchanging glances of affection.