LXXXIII. This must he feel, the true-born son of Greece, 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, : Can man its shatter'd splendour renovate, Recall its virtues back, and vanquish Time and Fate ? LXXXV. And yet how lovely in thine age of woe, So perish all in turn, save well-recorded Worth; On many of the mountains, particularly Liakura, the snow never is entirely melted, notwithstanding the intense heat of the summer; but I never saw it lie on the plains, even in winter. LXXXVI. 1 Save where some solitary column mourns While strangers only not regardless pass, Lingering like me, perchance, to gaze, and sigh "Alas!” 1 Of Mount Pentelicus, from whence the marble was dug that constructed the public edifices of Athens. The modern name is Mount Mendeli. An immense cave, formed by the quarries, still remains, and will till the end of time. 2 In all Attica, if we except Athens itself and Marathon, there is no scene more interesting than Cape Colonna. To the antiquary and artist, sixteen columns are an inexhaustible source of observation and design; to the philosopher, the supposed scene of some of Plato's conversations will not be unwelcome; and the traveller will be struck with the beauty of the prospect over "Isles that crown the Egean deep: " but, for an Englishman, Colonna has yet an additional interest, as the actual spot of Falconer's Shipwreck. Pallas and Plato are forgotten, in the recollection of Falconer and Campbell:. "Here in the dead of night by Lonna's steep, The seaman's cry was heard along the deep." This temple of Minerva may be seen at sea from a great distance. In two journeys which I made, and one voyage to Cape Colonna, the view from either side, by land, was less striking than the approach from the isles. In our second land excursion, we had a narrow escape from a party of Mainotes, concealed in the caverns beneath. We were told afterwards, by one of their prisoners, subsequently ransomed, that they were deterred from attacking us by the appearance of my two Albanians: conjecturing very sagaciously, but falsely, that we had a complete guard of these Arnaouts at hand, they remained stationary, and thus saved our party, which was too small to have opposed any effectual resistance. Colonna is no less a resort of painters than of pirates; there "The hireling artist plants his paltry desk, (See Hodgson's Lady Jane Grey, &c.) LXXXVII. Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild; And still his honied wealth Hymettus yields; LXXXVIII. Where'er we tread 't is haunted, holy ground; No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould, But one vast realm of wonder spreads around, And all the Muse's tales seem truly told, Till the sense aches with gazing to behold The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon : Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold Defies the power which crush'd thy temples gone: Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Marathon. But there Nature, with the aid of Art, has done that for herself. I was fortunate enough to engage a very superior German artist; and hope to renew my acquaintance with this and many other Levantine scenes, by the arrival of his performances. 1 [The following passage, in Harris's Philosophical Inquiries, contains the pith of this stanza: "Notwithstanding the various fortunes of Athens, as a city, Attica is still famous for olives, ana Mount Hymettus for honey. Human institutions perish, but Nature is permanent. I recollect having once pointed out this coincidence to Lord Byron, but he assured me that he had never LXXXIX. The sun, the soil, but not the slave, the same; Unchanged in all except its foreign lord — Preserves alike its bounds and boundless fame The Battle-field, where Persia's victim horde First bow'd beneath the brunt of Hellas' sword, As on the morn to distant Glory dear, When Marathon became a magic word; 1 Which utter'd, to the hearer's eye appear The camp, the host, the fight, the conqueror's career. XC. The flying Mede, his shaftless broken bow; Such was the scene what now remaineth here? The dust thy courser's hoof, rude stranger! spurns around. 1 "Siste Viator- heroa calcas!" was the epitaph on the famous Count Merci; -what then must be our feelings when standing on the tumulus of the two hundred (Greeks) who fell on Marathon ? The principal barrow has recently been opened by Fauvel: few or no relics, as vases, &c. were found by the excavator. The plain of Marathon was offered to me for sale at the sum of sixteen thousand piastres, about nine hundred pounds! Alas!" Expende-quot libras in duce summo- invenies! -was the dust of Miltiades worth no more? It could scarcely have fetched less if sold by weight. XCI. Yet to the remnants of thy splendour past As Pallas and the Muse unveil their awful lore. XCII. The parted bosom clings to wonted home, If aught that's kindred cheer the welcome hearth; He that is lonely, hither let him roam, And gaze complacent on congenial earth. Greece is no lightsome land of social mirth: But he whom Sadness sootheth may abide, And scarce regret the region of his birth, When wandering slow by Delphi's sacred side, Or gazing o'er the plains where Greek and Persian died. 1 XCIII. Let such approach this consecrated land, So may our country's name be undisgraced, So may'st thou prosper where thy youth was rear'd, By every honest joy of love and life endear'd! [The original MS. closes with this stanza. The rest was added while the canto was passing through the press.] |