LXXIII.

Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth! 1 Immortal, though no more; though fallen, great! Who now shall lead thy scatter'd children forth, And long accustom❜d bondage uncreate? Not such thy sons who whilome did await, The hopeless warriors of a willing doom, In bleak Thermopyla's sepulchral strait — Oh! who that gallant spirit shall resume, Leap from Eurotas' banks, and call thee from the tomb?

LXXIV.

Spirit of freedom! when on Phyle's brow 2
Thou sat'st with Thrasybulus and his train,
Couldst thou forebode the dismal hour which now
Dims the green beauties of thine Attic plain?
Not thirty tyrants now enforce the chain,
But every carle can lord it o'er thy land;
Nor rise thy sons, but idly rail in vain,

Trembling beneath the scourge of Turkish hand; From birth till death enslaved; in word,in deed, unmann'd.

LXXV.

In all save form alone, how changed! and who
That marks the fire still sparkling in each eye,
Who but would deem their bosoms burn'd anew
With thy unquenched beam, lost Liberty!
And many dream withal the hour is nigh
That gives them back their fathers' heritage:
For foreign arms and aid they fondly sigh,
Nor solely dare encounter hostile rage,

Or tear their name defiled from Slavery's mournful page.

1 Some Thoughts on the present State of Greece and Turkey will be found in the Appendix, Notes [D] and [E].

2 Phyle, which commands a beautiful view of Athens, has still considerable remains: it was seized by Thrasybulus, previous to the expulsion of the Thirty.

LXXVI.

Hereditary bondsmen! know ye not

Who would be free themselves must strike the blow? By their right arms the conquest must be wrought? Will Gaul or Muscovite redress ye? no! True, they may lay your proud despoilers low, But not for you will Freedom's altars flame. Shades of the Helots! triumph o'er your foe! Greece! change thy lords, thy state is still the same; Thy glorious day is o'er, but not thine years of shame.

LXXVII.

The city won for Allah from the Giaour,

The Giaour from Othman's race again may wrest; And the Serai's impenetrable tower

1

Receive the fiery Frank, her former guest;
Or Wahab's rebel brood who dared divest
The prophet's tomb of all its pious spoil,
May wind their path of blood along the West;
But ne'er will freedom seek this fated soil,

But slave succeed to slave through years of endless toil.

LXXVIII.

Yet mark their mirth- -ere lenten days begin
That penance which their holy rites prepare
To shrive from man his weight of mortal sin,
By daily abstinence and nightly prayer;
But ere his sackcloth garb Repentance wear,
Some days of joyaunce are decreed to all,
To take of pleasaunce each his secret share,
In motley robe to dance at masking ball,
And join the mimic train of merry Carnival.

1 When taken by the Latins, and retained for several years. 2 Mecca and Medina were taken some time ago by the Waha. bees, a sect yearly increasing.

LXXIX.

And whose more rife with merriment than thine, Oh Stamboul!! once the empress of their reign? Though turbans now pollute Sophia's shrine, And Greece her very altars eyes in vain : (Alas! her woes will still pervade my strain!) Gay were her minstrels once, for free her throng, All felt the common joy they now must feign, Nor oft I've seen such sight, nor heard such song, As woo'd the eye, and thrill'd the Bosphorus along. 2

[Of Constantinople Lord Byron says, "I have seen the ruins of Athens, of Ephesus, and Delphi; I have traversed great part of Turkey, and many other parts of Europe, and some of Asia; but I never beheld a work of nature or art which yielded an impression like the prospect on each side, from the Seven Towers to the end of the Golden Horn."]

2 ["The view of Constantinople," says Mr. Rose," which appeared intersected by groves of cypress (for such is the effect of its great burial-grounds planted with these trees), its gilded domes and minarets reflecting the first rays of the sun; the deep blue sea in which it glassed itself,' and that sea covered with beautiful boats and barges darting in every direction in perfect silence, amid sea-fowl, who sat at rest upon the waters, altogether conveyed such an impression as I had never received, and probably never shall again receive, from the view of any other place." The following sonnet, by the same author, has been so often quoted, that, but for its exquisite beauty, we should not have ventured to reprint it here:

"A glorious form thy shining city wore,

'Mid cypress thickets of perennial green,
With minaret and golden dome between,
While thy sea softly kiss'd its grassy shore:
Darting across whose blue expanse was seen

Of sculptured barques and galleys many a score;
Whence noise was none save that of plashing oar;
Nor word was spoke, to break the calm serene.
Unheard is whisker'd boatman's hail or joke;
Who, mute as Sinbad's man of copper, rows,
And only intermits the sturdy stroke,
When fearless gull too nigh his pinnace goes.

I, hardly conscious if I dreamed or woke,
Mark'd that strange piece of action and repose."]

LXXX.

Loud was the lightsome tumult on the shore, Oft Music changed, but never ceased her tone, And timely echo'd back the measured oar, And rippling waters made a pleasant moan: The Queen of tides on high consenting shone, And when a transient breeze swept o'er the wave, 'T was, as if darting from her heavenly throne, A brighter glance her form reflected gave, [lave. Till sparkling billows seem'd to light the banks they

LXXXI.

Glanced many a light caique along the foam,
Danced on the shore the daughters of the land,
Ne thought had man or maid of rest or home,
While many a languid eye and thrilling hand
Exchanged the look few bosoms may withstand,
Or gently prest, return'd the pressure still :
Oh Love! young Love! bound in thy rosy band,
Let sage or cynic prattle as he will,

These hours, and only these, redeem Life's years of ill!

LXXXII.

But, midst the throng in merry masquerade,
Lurk there no hearts that throb with secret pain,
Even through the closest searment half betray'd?
To such the gentle murmurs of the main
Seem to re-echo all they mourn in vain;
To such the gladness of the gamesome crowd
Is source of wayward thought and stern disdain:
How do they loathe the laughter idly loud,

And long to change the robe of revel for the shroud!

LXXXIII.

This must he feel, the true-born son of Greece,
If Greece one true-born patriot still can boast:
Not such as prate of war, but skulk in peace,
The bondsman's peace, who sighs for all he lost,
Yet with smooth smile his tyrant can accost,
And wield the slavish sickle, not the sword:

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,
When Grecian mothers shall give birth to men,
Then may'st thou be restored; but not till then.
A thousand years scarce serve to form a state;
An hour may lay it in the dust and when

:

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,

Land of lost gods and godlike men, art thou!
Thy vales of evergreen, thy hills of snow, 1
Proclaim thee Nature's varied favourite now:
Thy fanes, thy temples to thy surface bow,
Commingling slowly with heroic earth,
Broke by the share of every rustic plough:
So perish monuments of mortal birth,

So perish all in turn, save well-recorded Worth;

1 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.