Two hundred and odd stanzas as before, That being about the number I'll allow Each canto of the twelve, or twentyfour: And, laying down my pen, I make my bow, Leaving Don Juan and Haidée to plead For them and theirs with all who deign to read. Canto II., December, 1818, January, 1819. July 15, 1819. FROM CANTO III THE ISLES OF GREECE 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, The Scian and the Teian muse, The hero's harp, the lover's lute, The mountains look on Marathon- I dream'd that Greece might still be free: For standing on the Persians' grave, And where are they? and where art thou, Tis something, in the dearth of fame, 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 callHow 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 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; Trust not for freedom to the Franks, Our virgins dance beneath the shadeI see their glorious black eyes shine; But gazing on each glowing maid, My own the burning tear-drop laves, 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! Thus sung, or would, or could, or should have sung, St. 87 The modern Greek, in tolerable verse; If not like Orpheus quite, when Greece was young, Yet in these times he might have done much worse: His strain display'd some feeling-right or wrong; And feeling, in a poet, is the source Of others' feeling; but they are such liars, And take all colors-like the hands of dyers. But words are things, and a small drop of ink, Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think; 'Tis strange, the shortest letter which Survives himself, his tomb, and all that's his! And when his bones are dust, his grave a blank, His station, generation, even his nation, Become a thing, or nothing, save to rank In chronological commemoration, Some dull MS. oblivion long has sank, Or graven stone found in a barrack's station In digging the foundation of a closet, May turn his name up, as a rare deposit. And glory long has made the sages smile Tis something, nothing, words, ilusion wind- Depending more upon the historian's style And not a breath crept through the rosy air, And yet the forest leaves seem'd stirr'd with prayer. Ave Maria! 't is the hour of prayer! Ave Maria! 't is the hour of love! Ave Maria! may our spirits dare Look up to thine and to thy Son's above! Ave Maria! oh that face so fair! Those downcast eyes beneath the Almighty dove What though 't is but a pictured image strike, That painting is no idol,-'t is too like. |