Chapter IV: Prologue: To the Poor Gentleman, (1)

AS INTENDED TO BE PERFORMED BY THE OFFICERS OF THE 34TH REGIMENT AT CLONMEL.[5]

_Enter Captain_ George Browne, _in the character of Corporal_ Foss.

To-night, kind friends, at your tribunal here,
Stands “The Poor Gentleman,” with many a fear;
Since well he knows, whoe’er may judge his cause,
That Poverty’s no title to applause.
Genius or Wit, pray, who’ll admire or quote,
If all their drapery be a threadbare coat?
Who, in a world where all is bought and sold,
Minds a man’s worth--except his worth in gold?
Who’ll greet poor Merit if she lacks a dinner!
Hence, starving saint, but welcome, wealthy sinner!
Away with Poverty! let none receive her,
She bears contagion as a plague or fever;
“Bony, and gaunt, and grim”--like jaundiced eyes,
Discolouring all within her sphere that lies.
“Poor Gentleman!” and by poor soldiers, too!
Oh, matchless impudence! without a sous!
In scenes, in actors poor, and what far worse is,
With heads, perhaps, as empty as their purses,
How shall they dare at such a bar appear?
What are their tactics and manœuvres here?

While thoughts like these come rushing o’er our mind,
Oh! may we still indulgence hope to find!
Brave sons of Erin! whose distinguish’d name
Shines with such brilliance in the page of Fame,
And you, fair daughters of the Emerald Isle!
View our weak efforts with approving smile!
School’d in rough camps, and still disdaining art,
Ill can the soldier act a borrow’d part;
The march, the skirmish, in this warlike age,
Are his rehearsals, and the field his stage;
His theatre is found in every land,
Where wave the ensigns of a hostile band:
Place him in danger’s front--he recks not where--
Be your own Wellington his prompter there,
And on that stage he trusts, with fearful mien,
He’ll act his part in glory’s tragic scene.
Yet here, though friends are gaily marshall’d round,
And from bright eyes alone he dreads a wound,
Here, though in ambush no sharpshooter’s wile
Aims at his breast, save hid in beauty’s smile;
Though all unused to pause, to doubt, to fear,
Yet his heart sinks, his courage fails him here.
No scenic pomp to him its aid supplies,
No stage effect of glittering pageantries:
No, to your kindness he must look alone
To realise the hope he dares not own;
And trusts, since here he meets no cynic eye,
His wish to please may claim indemnity.

And why despair, indulgence when we crave
From Erin’s sons, the generous and the brave?
Theirs the high spirit, and the liberal thought,
Kind, warm, sincere, with native candour fraught;
Still has the stranger, in their social isle,
Met the frank welcome and the cordial smile,
And well their hearts can share, though unexpress’d,
Each thought, each feeling, of the soldier’s breast.

[5] These verses were written about the same time as the preceding humorous epitaphs.

[As, in the present collected edition of the writings of Mrs Hemans, chronological arrangement has been for the first time strictly attended to, a selection from her Juvenile compositions has been given, chiefly as a matter of curiosity--for her real career as an authoress cannot be said to have commenced before the publication of the section which immediately follows.

In a very general point of view, the intellectual history of Mrs Hemans’ mind may be divided into two distinct and separate eras--the first of which may be termed the _classical_, and comprehends the productions of her pen, from “The Restoration of the Works of Art to Italy,” and “Modern Greece,” down to the “Historical Scenes,” and the “Translations from Camoens;” and the last, the _romantic_, which commences with “The Forest Sanctuary,” and includes “The Records of Woman,” together with nearly all her later efforts. In regard to excellence, there can be little doubt that the last section as far transcends the first as that does the merely Juvenile Poems now given, and which certainly appear to us to exhibit occasional scintillations of the brightness which followed. Even after the early poetical attempts of Cowley and Pope, of Chatterton, Kirke White, and Byron, these immature outpourings of sentiment and description may be read with an interest which diminishes not by comparison.]

THE RESTORATION OF THE WORKS OF ART TO ITALY.

[“The French, who in every invasion have been the scourge of Italy, and have rivalled or rather surpassed the rapacity of the Goths and Vandals, laid their sacrilegious hands on the unparalleled collection of the Vatican, tore its masterpieces from their pedestals, and, dragging them from their temples of marble, transported them to Paris, and consigned them to the dull sullen halls, or rather stables, of the Louvre.... But the joy of discovery was short, and the triumph of taste transitory.”--Eustace’s _Classical Tour through Italy_, vol. ii. p. 60.]

“Italia, Italia! O tu cui die la sorte
Dono infelice di bellezza, ond’ hai
Funesta dote d’infiniti guai,
Che’n fronte scritte per gran doglia porte;
Deh, fossi tu men bella, o almen piu forte.”

Filicaja.

Land of departed fame! whose classic plains
Have proudly echo’d to immortal strains;
Whose hallow’d soil hath given the great and brave,
Day-stars of life, a birth-place and a grave;
Home of the Arts! where glory’s faded smile
Sheds lingering light o’er many a mouldering pile;
Proud wreck of vanish’d power, of splendour fled,
Majestic temple of the mighty dead!
Whose grandeur, yet contending with decay,
Gleams through the twilight of thy glorious day;
Though dimm’d thy brightness, riveted thy chain,
Yet, fallen Italy! rejoice again!
Lost, lovely realm! once more ’tis thine to gaze
On the rich relics of sublimer days.

Awake, ye Muses of Etrurian shades,
Or sacred Tivoli’s romantic glades;
Wake, ye that slumber in the bowery gloom
Where the wild ivy shadows Virgil’s tomb;
Or ye, whose voice, by Sorga’s lonely wave,
Swell’d the deep echoes of the fountain’s cave,
Or thrill’d the soul in Tasso’s numbers high--
Those magic strains of love and chivalry!
If yet by classic streams ye fondly rove,
Haunting the myrtle vale, the laurel grove,
Oh! rouse once more the daring soul of song,
Seize with bold hand the harp, forgot so long,
And hail, with wonted pride, those works revered,
Hallow’d by time, by absence more endear’d.

And breathe to Those the strain, whose warrior-might
Each danger stemm’d, prevail’d in every fight--
Souls of unyielding power, to storms inured,
Sublimed by peril, and by toil matured.
Sing of that Leader, whose ascendant mind
Could rouse the slumbering spirit of mankind;
Whose banners track’d the vanquish’d Eagle’s flight
O’er many a plain, and dark sierra’s height;
Who bade once more the wild heroic lay
Record the deeds of Roncesvalles’ day;
Who, through each mountain-pass of rock and snow,
An Alpine huntsman, chased the fear-struck foe;
Waved his proud standard to the balmy gales,
Rich Languedoc! that fan thy glowing vales,
And ’midst those scenes renew’d th’ achievements high
Bequeath’d to fame by England’s ancestry.

Yet, when the storm seem’d hush’d, the conflict past,
One strife remain’d--the mightest and the last!
Nerved for the struggle, in that fateful hour
Untamed Ambition summon’d all his power:
Vengeance and Pride, to frenzy roused, were there,
And the stern might of resolute Despair.
Isle of the free! ’twas then thy champions stood,
Breasting unmoved the combat’s wildest flood;
Sunbeam of battle! then thy spirit shone,
Glow’d in each breast, and sunk with life alone.

O hearts devoted! whose illustrious doom
Gave there at once your triumph and your tomb,
Ye firm and faithful, in the ordeal tried
Of that dread strife, by Freedom sanctified;
Shrined, not entomb’d, ye rest in sacred earth,
Hallow’d by deeds of more than mortal worth.
What though to mark where sleeps heroic dust,
No sculptured trophy rise, or breathing bust,
Yours, on the scene where valour’s race was run,
A prouder sepulchre--the field ye won!
There every mead, each cabin’s lowly name,
Shall live a watchword blended with your fame;
And well may flowers suffice those graves to crown
That ask no urn to blazon their renown!
There shall the bard in future ages tread,
And bless each wreath that blossoms o’er the dead;
Revere each tree whose sheltering branches wave
O’er the low mounds, the altars of the brave!
Pause o’er each warrior’s grass-grown bed, and hear
In every breeze some name to glory dear;
And as the shades of twilight close around,
With martial pageants people all the ground.
Thither unborn descendants of the slain
Still throng as pilgrims to the holy fane,
While as they trace each spot, whose records tell
Where fought their fathers, and prevail’d, and fell,
Warm in their souls shall loftiest feelings glow,
Claiming proud kindred with the dust below!
And many an age shall see the brave repair
To learn the Hero’s bright devotion there.

And well, Ausonia! may that field of fame,
From thee one song of echoing triumph claim.
Land of the lyre! ’twas there th’ avenging sword
Won the bright treasures to thy fanes restored;
Those precious trophies o’er thy realms that throw
A veil of radiance, hiding half thy woe,
And bid the stranger for awhile forget
How deep thy fall, and deem thee glorious yet.

Yes, fair creations! to perfection wrought,
Embodied visions of ascending thought!
Forms of sublimity! by Genius traced
In tints that vindicate adoring taste!
Whose bright originals, to earth unknown,
Live in the spheres encircling glory’s throne;
Models of art, to deathless fame consign’d,
Stamp’d with the high-born majesty of mind;
Yes, matchless works! your presence shall restore
One beam of splendour to your native shore,
And her sad scenes of lost renown illume,
As the bright sunset gilds some hero’s tomb.

Oh! ne’er, in other climes, though many an eye
Dwelt on your charms, in beaming ecstasy--
Ne’er was it yours to bid the soul expand
With thoughts so mighty, dreams so boldly grand,
As in that realm, where each faint breeze’s moan
Seems a low dirge for glorious ages gone;
Where midst the ruin’d shrines of many a vale,
E’en Desolation tells a haughty tale,
And scarce a fountain flows, a rock ascends,
But its proud name with song eternal blends!

Yes! in those scenes where every ancient stream
Bids memory kindle o’er some lofty theme;
Where every marble deeds of fame records,
Each ruin tells of Earth’s departed lords;
And the deep tones of inspiration swell
From each wild olive-wood, and Alpine dell;
Where heroes slumber on their battle plains,
Midst prostrate altars and deserted fanes,
And Fancy communes, in each lonely spot,
With shades of those who ne’er shall be forgot;
_There_ was your home, and there your power imprest,
With tenfold awe, the pilgrim’s glowing breast;
And, as the wind’s deep thrills and mystic sighs
Wake the wild harp to loftiest harmonies,
Thus at your influence, starting from repose,
Thought Feeling, Fancy, into grandeur rose.

Fair Florence! queen of Arno’s lovely vale!
Justice and Truth indignant heard thy tale,
And sternly smiled, in retribution’s hour,
To wrest thy treasures from the Spoiler’s power.
Too long the spirits of thy noble dead
Mourn’d o’er the domes they rear’d in ages fled.
Those classic scenes their pride so richly graced,
Temples of genius, palaces of taste,
Too long, with sad and desolated mien,
Reveal’d where Conquest’s lawless track had been;
Reft of each form with brighter light imbued,
Lonely they frown’d, a desert solitude.
Florence! th’ Oppressor’s noon of pride is o’er,
Rise in thy pomp again, and weep no more!

As one who, starting at the dawn of day
From dark illusions, phantoms of dismay,
With transport heighten’d by those ills of night,
Hails the rich glories of expanding light;
E’en thus, awakening from thy dream of woe,
While heaven’s own hues in radiance round thee glow,
With warmer ecstasy ’tis thine to trace
Each tint of beauty, and each line of grace;
More bright, more prized, more precious, since deplored
As loved lost relics, ne’er to be restored--
Thy grief as hopeless as the tear-drop shed
By fond affection bending o’er the dead.

Athens of Italy! once more are thine
Those matchless gems of Art’s exhaustless mine.
For thee bright Genius darts his living beam,
Warm o’er thy shrines the tints of Glory stream,
And forms august as natives of the sky
Rise round each fane in faultless majesty--
So chastely perfect, so serenely grand,
They seem creations of no mortal hand.

Ye at whose voice fair Art, with eagle glance,
Burst in full splendour from her deathlike trance--
Whose rallying call bade slumbering nations wake,
And daring Intellect his bondage break--
Beneath whose eye the lords of song arose,
And snatch’d the Tuscan lyre from long repose,
And bade its pealing energies resound
With power electric through the realms around;
O high in thought, magnificent in soul!
Born to inspire, enlighten, and control;
Cosmo, Lorenzo! view your reign once more,
The shrine where nations mingle to adore!
Again th’ enthusiast there, with ardent gaze,
Shall hail the mighty of departed days:
Those sovereign spirits, whose commanding mind
Seems in the marble’s breathing mould enshrined;
Still with ascendant power the world to awe,
Still the deep homage of the heart to draw;
To breathe some spell of holiness around,
Bid all the scene be consecrated ground,
And from the stone, by Inspiration wrought,
Dart the pure lightnings of exalted thought.

There thou, fair offspring of immortal Mind!
Love’s radiant goddess, idol of mankind!
Once the bright object of Devotion’s vow,
Shalt claim from taste a kindred worship now.
Oh! who can tell what beams of heavenly light
Flash’d o’er the sculptor’s intellectual sight,
How many a glimpse, reveal’d to him alone,
Made brighter beings, nobler worlds, his own;
Ere, like some vision sent the earth to bless,
Burst into life thy pomp of loveliness!

Young Genius there, while dwells his kindling eye
On forms instinct with bright divinity,
While new-born powers, dilating in his heart,
Embrace the full magnificence of Art;
From scenes by Raphael’s gifted hand array’d,
From dreams of heaven by Angelo portray’d;
From each fair work of Grecian skill sublime,
Seal’d with perfection, “sanctified by time;”
Shall catch a kindred glow, and proudly feel
His spirit burn with emulative zeal:
Buoyant with loftier hopes, his soul shall rise,
Imbued at once with nobler energies;
O’er life’s dim scenes on rapid pinions soar,
And worlds of visionary grace explore,
Till his bold hand give glory’s daydream birth,
And with new wonders charm admiring earth.

Venice exult! and o’er thy moonlight seas
Swell with gay strains each Adriatic breeze!
What though long fled those years of martial fame
That shed romantic lustre o’er thy name;
Though to the winds thy streamers idly play,
And the wild waves another Queen obey;
Though quench’d the spirit of thine ancient race,
And power and freedom scarce have left a trace;
Yet still shall Art her splendours round thee cast,
And gild the wreck of years for ever past.
Again thy fanes may boast a Titian’s dyes,
Whose clear soft brilliance emulates thy skies,
And scenes that glow in colouring’s richest bloom
With life’s warm flush Palladian halls illume.
From thy rich dome again th’ unrivall’d steed
Starts to existence, rushes into speed,
Still for Lysippus claims the wreath of fame,
Panting with ardour, vivified with flame.

Proud Racers of the Sun! to fancy’s thought
Burning with spirit, from his essence caught,
No mortal birth ye seem--but form’d to bear
Heaven’s car of triumph through the realms of air;
To range uncurb’d the pathless fields of space,
The winds your rivals in the glorious race;
Traverse empyreal spheres with buoyant feet,
Free as the zephyr, as the shot-star fleet;
And waft through worlds unknown the vital ray,
The flame that wakes creations into day.
Creatures of fire and ether! wing’d with light,
To track the regions of the Infinite!
From purer elements whose life was drawn,
Sprung from the sunbeam, offspring of the dawn
What years, on years in silence gliding by,
Have spared those forms of perfect symmetry!
Moulded by Art to dignify alone
Her own bright deity’s resplendent throne,
Since first her skill their fiery grace bestow’d
Meet for such lofty fate, such high abode,
How many a race, whose tales of glory seem
An echo’s voice--the music of a dream,
Whose records feebly from oblivion save
A few bright traces of the wise and brave;
How many a state, whose pillar’d strength sublime
Defied the storms of war, the waves of time,
Towering o’er earth majestic and alone,
Fortress of power--has flourish’d and is gone!
And they, from clime to clime by conquest borne,
Each fleeting triumph destined to adorn,
They, that of powers and kingdoms lost and won
Have seen the noontide and the setting sun,
Consummate still in every grace remain,
As o’er _their_ heads had ages roll’d in vain!
Ages, victorious in their ceaseless flight
O’er countless monuments of earthly might!
While she, from fair Byzantium’s lost domain,
Who bore those treasures to her ocean-reign.
’Midst the blue deep, who rear’d her island throne,
And called th’ infinitude of waves her own;
Venice the proud, the Regent of the sea,
Welcomes in chains the trophies of the Free!

And thou, whose Eagle towering plume unfurl’d
Once cast its shadow o’er a vassal world,
Eternal city! round whose Curule throne
The lords of nations knelt in ages flown;
Thou, whose Augustan years have left to time
Immortal records of their glorious prime;
When deathless bards, thine olive-shades among,
Swell’d the high raptures of heroic song;
Fair, fallen Empress! raise thy languid head
From the cold altars of th’ illustrious dead,
And once again with fond delight survey
The proud memorials of thy noblest day.

Lo! where thy sons, O Rome! a godlike train,
In imaged majesty return again!
Bards, chieftains, monarchs, tower with mien august
O’er scenes that shrine their venerable dust.
Those forms, those features, luminous with soul,
Still o’er thy children seem to claim control;
With awful grace arrest the pilgrim’s glance,
Bind his rapt soul in elevating trance,
And bid the past, to fancy’s ardent eyes,
From time’s dim sepulchre in glory rise.

Souls of the lofty! whose undying names
Rouse the young bosom still to noblest aims;
Oh! with your images could fate restore
Your own high spirit to your sons once more;
Patriots and Heroes! could those flames return
That bade your hearts with freedom’s ardours burn;
Then from the sacred ashes of the first,
Might a new Rome in phœnix grandeur burst!
With one bright glance dispel th’ horizon’s gloom,
With one loud call wake empire from the tomb;
Bind round her brows her own triumphal crown,
Lift her dread ægis with majestic frown,
Unchain her eagle’s wing, and guide his flight
To bathe his plumage in the fount of light!

Vain dream! Degraded Rome! thy noon is o’er;
Once lost, thy spirit shall revive no more.
It sleeps with those, the sons of other days,
Who fix’d on thee the world’s adoring gaze;
Those, blest to live, while yet thy star was high,
More blest, ere darkness quench’d its beam, to die!

Yet, though thy faithless tutelary powers
Have fled thy shrines, left desolate thy towers,
Still, still to thee shall nations bend their way,
Revered in ruin, sovereign in decay!
Oh! what can realms in fame’s full zenith boast
To match the relics of thy splendour lost!
By Tiber’s waves, on each illustrious hill,
Genius and Taste shall love to wander still;
For there has Art survived an empire’s doom,
And rear’d her throne o’er Latium’s trophied tomb:
She from the dust recalls the brave and free,
Peopling each scene with beings worthy thee!

Oh! ne’er again may War, with lightning-stroke,
Rend its last honours from the shatter’d oak!
Long be those works, revered by ages, thine,
To lend one triumph to thy dim decline.

Bright with stern beauty, breathing wrathful fire.
In all the grandeur of celestial ire,
Once more thine own, th’ immortal Archer’s form
Sheds radiance round, with more than Being warm!
Oh! who could view, nor deem that perfect frame
A living temple of ethereal flame?

Lord of the daystar! how may words portray
Of thy chaste glory one reflected ray?
Whate’er the soul could dream, the hand could trace,
Of regal dignity and heavenly grace;
Each purer effluence of the fair and bright,
Whose fitful gleams have broke on mortal sight
Each bold idea, borrow’d from the sky,
To vest th’ embodied form of Deity;
All, all in thee, ennobled and refined,
Breathe and enchant, transcendently combined!
Son of Elysium! years and ages gone
Have bow’d in speechless homage at thy throne,
And days unborn, and nations yet to be,
Shall gaze, absorb’d in ecstasy, on thee!

And thou, triumphant wreck,[6] e’en yet sublime,
Disputed trophy, claimed by Art and time:
Hail to that scene again, where Genius caught
From thee its fervours of diviner thought!
Where He, th’ inspired One, whose gigantic mind
Lived in some sphere to him alone assign’d;
Who from the past, the future, and th’ unseen
Could call up forms of more than earthly mien:
Unrivall’d Angelo on thee would gaze,
Till his full soul imbibed perfection’s blaze!
And who but he, that Prince of Art, might dare
Thy sovereign greatness view without despair?
Emblem of Rome! from power’s meridian hurl’d,
Yet claiming still the homage of the world.

What hadst thou been, ere barbarous hands defaced
The work of wonder, idolised by taste?
Oh! worthy still of some divine abode,
Mould of a Conqueror! ruin of a God![7]
Still, like some broken gem, whose quenchless beam
From each bright fragment pours its vital stream,
’Tis thine, by fate unconquer’d, to dispense
From every part some ray of excellence!
E’en yet, inform’d with essence from on high,
Thine is no trace of frail mortality!
Within that frame a purer being glows,
Through viewless veins a brighter current flows;
Fill’d with immortal life each muscle swells,
In every line supernal grandeur dwells,

Consummate work! the noblest and the last
Of Grecian Freedom, ere her reign was past:[8]
Nurse of the mighty, she, while lingering still,
Her mantle flow’d o’er many a classic hill,
Ere yet her voice its parting accents breathed,
A hero’s image to the world bequeathed;
Enshrined in thee th’ imperishable ray
Of high-soul’d Genius, foster’d by her sway,
And bade thee teach, to ages yet unborn,
What lofty dreams were hers--who never shall return!

And mark yon group, transfix’d with many a throe,
Seal’d with the image of eternal woe:
With fearful truth, terrific power, exprest,
Thy pangs, Laocoon, agonise the breast,
And the stern combat picture to mankind
Of suffering nature and enduring mind.
Oh, mighty conflict! though his pains intense
Distend each nerve, and dart through every sense;
Though fix’d on him, his children’s suppliant eyes
Implore the aid avenging fate denies;
Though with the giant-snake in fruitless strife,
Heaves every muscle with convulsive life,
And in each limb existence writhes, enroll’d
Midst the dread circles of the venom’d fold;
Yet the strong spirit lives--and not a cry
Shall own the might of Nature’s agony!
That furrow’d brow unconquer’d soul reveals,
That patient eye to angry Heaven appeals,
That struggling bosom concentrates its breath,
Nor yields one moan to torture or to death![9]

Sublimest triumph of intrepid Art!
With speechless horror to congeal the heart,
To freeze each pulse, and dart through every vein
Cold thrills of fear, keen sympathies of pain;
Yet teach the spirit how its lofty power
May brave the pangs of fate’s severest hour.

Turn from such conflicts, and enraptured gaze
On scenes where painting all her skill displays:
Landscapes, by colouring dress’d in richer dyes,
More mellow’d sunshine, more unclouded skies,
Or dreams of bliss to dying martyrs given,
Descending seraphs robed in beams of heaven.

Oh! sovereign Masters of the Pencil’s might,
Its depths of shadow and its blaze of light;
Ye, whose bold thought, disdaining every bound,
Explored the worlds above, below, around,
Children of Italy! who stand alone
And unapproach’d, midst regions all your own;
What scenes, what beings bless’d your favour’d sight,
Severely grand, unutterably bright!
Triumphant spirits! your exulting eye
Could meet the noontide of eternity,
And gaze untired, undaunted, uncontroll’d,
On all that Fancy trembles to behold.

Bright on your view such forms their splendour shed
As burst on prophet-bards in ages fled:
Forms that to trace no hand but yours might dare,
Darkly sublime, or exquisitely fair;
These o’er the walls your magic skill array’d,
Glow in rich sunshine, gleam through melting shade,
Float in light grace, in awful greatness tower,
And breathe and move, the records of your power.
Inspired of heaven! what heighten’d pomp ye cast
O’er all the deathless trophies of the past!
Round many a marble fane and classic dome,
Asserting still the majesty of Rome--
Round many a work that bids the world believe
What Grecian Art could image and achieve,
Again, creative minds, your visions throw
Life’s chasten’d warmth and Beauty’s mellowest glow.
And when the Morn’s bright beams and mantling dyes
Pour the rich lustre of Ausonian skies,
Or evening suns illume with purple smile
The Parian altar and the pillar’d aisle,
Then, as the full or soften’d radiance falls
On angel-groups that hover o’er the walls,
Well may those temples, where your hand has shed
Light o’er the tomb, existence round the dead,
Seem like some world, so perfect and so fair,
That nought of earth should find admittance there,
Some sphere, where beings, to mankind unknown,
Dwell in the brightness of their pomp alone!

Hence, ye vain fictions! fancy’s erring theme!
Gods of illusion! phantoms of a dream!
Frail, powerless idols of departed time,
Fables of song, delusive, though sublime!
To loftier tasks has Roman Art assign’d
Her matchless pencil, and her mighty mind!
From brighter streams her vast ideas flow’d,
With purer fire her ardent spirit glow’d.
To her ’twas given in fancy to explore
The land of miracles, the holiest shore;
That realm where first the Light of Life was sent,
The loved, the punish’d, of th’ Omnipotent!
O’er Judah’s hills her thoughts inspired would stray,
Through Jordan’s valleys trace their lonely way;
By Siloa’s brook, or Almotana’s deep,[10]
Chain’d in dead silence, and unbroken sleep;
Scenes, whose cleft rocks and blasted deserts tell
Where pass’d th’ Eternal, where his anger fell!
Where oft his voice the words of fate reveal’d,
Swell’d in the whirlwind, in the thunder peal’d,
Or, heard by prophets in some palmy vale,
“Breathed still small” whispers on the midnight gale.
There dwelt her spirit--there her hand portray’d,
Midst the lone wilderness or cedar-shade,
Ethereal forms with awful missions fraught,
Or patriarch-seers absorb’d in sacred thought,
Bards, in high converse with the world of rest,
Saints of the earth, and spirits of the blest.
But chief to Him, the Conqueror of the grave,
Who lived to guide us, and who died to save;
Him, at whose glance the powers of evil fled,
And soul return’d to animate the dead;
Whom the waves own’d--and sunk beneath his eye,
Awed by one accent of Divinity;
To Him she gave her meditative hours,
Hallow’d her thoughts, and sanctified her powers.
O’er her bright scenes sublime repose she threw,
As all around the Godhead’s presence knew,
And robed the Holy One’s benignant mien
In beaming mercy, majesty serene.

Oh! mark where Raphael’s pure and perfect line
Portrays that form ineffably divine!
Where with transcendant skill his hand has shed
Diffusive sunbeams round the Saviour’s head;[11]
Each heaven-illumined lineament imbued
With all the fulness of beatitude,
And traced the sainted group, whose mortal sight
Sinks overpower’d by that excess of light!

Gaze on that scene, and own the might of Art,
By truth inspired, to elevate the heart!
To bid the soul exultingly possess,
Of all her powers, a heighten’d consciousness;
And, strong in hope, anticipate the day,
The last of life, the first of freedom’s ray;
To realise, in some unclouded sphere,
Those pictured glories feebly imaged here!
Dim, cold reflections from her native sky,
Faint effluence of “the Dayspring from on high!”

[This poem is thus alluded to by Lord Byron, in one of his published letters to Mr Murray, dated from Diodati, Sept. 30th, 1818:--“Italy or Dalmatia and another summer may, or may not, set me off again.... I shall take Felicia Hemans’s _Restoration_, &c., with me--it is a good poem--very.”]

[6] The Belvidere Torso, the favourite study of Michael Angelo, and of many other distinguished artists.

[7] “Quoique cette statue d’Hercule ait été maltraitée et mutilée d’une manière étrange, se trouvant sans tête, sans bras, et sans jambes, elle est cependant encore un chef-d’œuvre aux yeux des connoisseurs; et ceux qui savent percer dans les mystères de l’art, se la représentent dans toute sa beauté. L’Artiste, en voulant représenter Hercule, a formé un corps idéal audessus de la nature * * * Cet Hercule paroît donc ici tel qu’il put être lorsque, purifié par le feu des foiblesses de l’humanité, il obtint l’immortalité et prit place auprès des Dieux. Il est représenté sans aucun besoin de nourriture et de réparation de forces. Les veines y sont tout invisibles.”--Winckelmann, _Histoire de l’Art chez les Anciens_, torn. ii. p. 248.

[8] “Le Torso d’Hercule paroît un des derniers ouvrages parfaits que l’art ait produit en Grèce, avant la perte de sa libérté. Car après que la Grèce fut réduite en province Romaine, l’histoire ne fait mention d’aucun artiste célèbre de cette nation, jusqu’aux temps du Triumvirat Romain.”--Winckelmann, _ibid._ tom. ii. p. 250.

[9] “It is not, in the same manner, in the agonised limbs, or in the convulsed muscles of the Laocoon, that the secret grace of its composition resides; it is in the majestic air of the head, which has not _yielded to suffering_, and in the deep serenity of the forehead, which seems to be still _superior_ to all its _afflictions_, and significant of a mind that cannot be subdued.”--Alison’s _Essays_, vol. ii. p. 400.

“Laocoon nous offre le spectacle de la nature humaine dans la plus grande douleur dont elle soit susceptible, sous l’image d’un homme qui tâche de rassembler contre elle toute la force de l’esprit. Tandis que l’excès de la souffrance enfle les muscles, et tire violemment les nerfs, le courage se montre sur le front gonflé: la poitrine s’élève avec peine par la nécessité de la respiration, qui est également contrainte par le silence que la force de l’âme impose à la douleur qu’elle voudrait étouffer * * * * Son air est plaintif, et non criard.”---Winckelmann, _Histoire de l’Art chez les Anciens_, tom. ii. p. 214.

[10] _Almotana._ The name given by the Arabs to the Dead Sea.

[11] _The Transfiguration_, thought to be so perfect a specimen of art, that, in honour of Raphael, it was carried before his body to the grave.

MODERN GREECE.

“O Greece! thou sapient nurse of finer arts,
Which to bright Science blooming Fancy bore,
Be this thy praise, that thou, and thou alone,
In these hast led the way, in these excell’d,
Crown’d with the laurel of assenting Time.”

Thomson’s _Liberty_.

I.

Oh! who hath trod thy consecrated clime,
Fair land of Phidias! theme of lofty strains!
And traced each scene that, midst the wrecks of time,
The print of Glory’s parting step retains;
Nor for awhile, in high-wrought dreams, forgot,
Musing on years gone by in brightness there,
The hopes, the fears, the sorrows of his lot,
The hues his fate hath worn, or yet may wear;
As when, from mountain-heights, his ardent eye
Of sea and heaven hath track’d the blue infinity?

II.

Is there who views with cold unalter’d mien,
His frozen heart with proud indifference fraught,
Each sacred haunt, each unforgotten scene,
Where Freedom triumph’d, or where Wisdom taught?
Souls that too deeply feel! oh, envy not
The sullen calm your fate hath never known:
Through the dull twilight of that wintery lot
Genius ne’er pierced, nor Fancy’s sunbeam shone,
Nor those high thoughts that, hailing Glory’s trace,
Glow with the generous flames of every age and race.

III.

But blest the wanderer whose enthusiast mind
Each muse of ancient days hath deep imbued
With lofty lore, and all his thoughts refined
In the calm school of silent solitude;
Pour’d on his ear, midst groves and glens retired,
The mighty strains of each illustrious clime,
All that hath lived, while empires have expired,
To float for ever on the winds of time;
And on his soul indelibly portray’d
Fair visionary forms, to fill each classic shade.

IV.

Is not this mind, to meaner thoughts unknown,
A sanctuary of beauty and of light?
There he may dwell in regions all his own,
A world of dreams, where all is pure and bright.
For him the scenes of old renown possess
Romantic charms, all veil’d from other eyes;
There every form of nature’s loveliness
Wakes in his breast a thousand sympathies;
As music’s voice, in some lone mountain dell,
From rocks and caves around calls forth each echo’s swell.

V.

For him Italia’s brilliant skies illume
The bard’s lone haunts, the warrior’s combat-plains,
And the wild rose yet lives to breath and bloom
Round Doric Pæstum’s solitary fanes.[12]
But most, fair Greece! on thy majestic shore
He feels the fervours of his spirit rise;
Thou birth-place of the Muse! whose voice of yore
Breathed in thy groves immortal harmonies;
And lingers still around the well-known coast,
Murmuring a wild farewell to fame and freedom lost.

VI.

By seas that flow in brightness as they lave
Thy rocks, th’ enthusiast rapt in thought may stray,
While roves his eye o’er that deserted wave,
Once the proud scene of battle’s dread array.
--O ye blue waters! ye, of old that bore
The free, the conquering, hymn’d by choral strains,
How sleep ye now around the silent shore,
The lonely realm of ruins and of chains!
How are the mighty vanish’d in their pride!
E’en as their barks have left no traces on your tide.

VII.

Hush’d are the Pæans whose exulting tone
Swell’d o’er that tide[13]--the sons of battle sleep--
The wind’s wild sigh, the halcyon’s voice alone
Blend with the plaintive murmur of the deep.
Yet when those waves have caught the splendid hues
Of morn’s rich firmament, serenely bright,
Or setting suns the lovely shore suffuse
With all their purple mellowness of light,
Oh! who could view the scene, so calmly fair,
Nor dream that peace, and joy, and liberty were there?

VIII.

Where soft the sunbeams play, the zephyrs blow,
’Tis hard to deem that misery can be nigh;
Where the clear heavens in blue transparence glow,
Life should be calm and cloudless as the sky;
--Yet o’er the low, dark dwellings of the dead,
Verdure and flowers in summer-bloom may smile,
And ivy-boughs their graceful drapery spread
In green luxuriance o’er the ruin’d pile;
And mantling woodbine veil the wither’d tree;--
And thus it is, fair land! forsaken Greece, with thee.

IX.

For all the loveliness, and light, and bloom
That yet are thine, surviving many a storm,
Are but as heaven’s warm radiance on the tomb,
The rose’s blush that masks the canker-worm.
And thou art desolate--thy morn hath pass’d!
So dazzling in the splendour of its sway,
That the dark shades the night hath o’er thee cast
Throw tenfold gloom around thy deep decay.
Once proud in freedom, still in ruin fair,
Thy fate hath been unmatch’d--in glory and despair.

X.

For thee, lost land! the hero’s blood hath flow’d,
The high in soul have brightly lived and died;
For thee the light of soaring genius glow’d
O’er the fair arts it form’d and glorified.
Thine were the minds whose energies sublime
So distanced ages in their lightning-race,
The task they left the sons of later time
Was but to follow their illumined trace.
--Now, bow’d to earth, thy children, to be free,
Must break each link that binds their filial hearts to thee.

XI.

Lo! to the scenes of fiction’s wildest tales,
Her own bright East, thy son, Morea! flies,[14]
To seek repose midst rich, romantic vales,
Whose incense mounts to Asia’s vivid skies.
There shall he rest?--Alas! his hopes in vain
Guide to the sun-clad regions of the palm:
Peace dwells not now on oriental plain,
Though earth is fruitfulness, and air is balm;
And the sad wanderer finds but lawless foes,
Where patriarchs reign’d of old in pastoral repose.

XII.

Where Syria’s mountains rise, or Yemen’s groves,
Or Tigris rolls his genii-haunted wave,
Life to his eye, as wearily it roves,
Wears but two forms--the tyrant and the slave!
There the fierce Arab leads his daring horde
Where sweeps the sand-storm o’er the burning wild;
There stern Oppression waves the wasting sword
O’er plains that smile as ancient Eden smiled;
And the vale’s bosom, and the desert’s gloom,
Yield to the injured there no shelter save the tomb.

XIII.

But thou, fair world! whose fresh unsullied charms
Welcomed Columbus from the western wave,
Wilt thou receive the wanderer to thine arms,[15]
The lost descendant of the immortal brave?
Amidst the wild magnificence of shades
That o’er thy floods their twilight-grandeur cast,
In the green depth of thine untrodden glades
Shall he not rear his bower of peace at last?
Yes! thou hast many a lone, majestic scene,
Shrined in primeval woods, where despot ne’er hath been.

XIV.

There by some lake, whose blue expansive breast
Bright from afar, an inland ocean, gleams,
Girt with vast solitudes, profusely dress’d
In tints like those that float o’er poet’s dreams;
Or where some flood from pine-clad mountain pours
Its might of waters, glittering in their foam,
Midst the rich verdure of its wooded shores,
The exiled Greek hath fix’d his sylvan home:
So deeply lone, that round the wild retreat
Scarce have the paths been trod by Indian huntsman’s feet.

XV.

The forests are around him in their pride,
The green savannas, and the mighty waves;
And isles of flowers, bright-floating o’er the tide,[16]
That images the fairy worlds it laves,
And stillness, and luxuriance. O’er his head
The ancient cedars wave their peopled bowers,
On high the palms their graceful foliage spread,
Cinctured with roses the magnolia towers;
And from those green arcades a thousand tones
Wake with each breeze, whose voice through Nature’s temple moans.

XVI.

And there, no traces left by brighter days
For glory lost may wake a sigh of grief;
Some grassy mound, perchance, may meet his gaze,
The lone memorial of an Indian chief.
There man not yet hath mark’d the boundless plain
With marble records of his fame and power;
The forest is his everlasting fane,
The palm his monument, the rock his tower:
Th’ eternal torrent and the giant tree
Remind him but that they, like him, are wildly free.

XVII.

But doth the exile’s heart serenely there
In sunshine dwell?--Ah! when was exile blest?
When did bright scenes, clear heavens, or summer air,
Chase from his soul the fever of unrest?
--There is a heart-sick weariness of mood,
That like slow poison wastes the vital glow,
And shrines itself in mental solitude,
An uncomplaining and a nameless woe.
That coldly smiles midst pleasure’s brightest ray,
As the chill glacier’s peak reflects the flush of day.

XVIII.

Such grief is theirs, who, fix’d on foreign shore,
Sigh for the spirit of their native gales,
As pines the seaman, midst the ocean’s roar,
For the green earth, with all its woods and vales.
Thus feels thy child, whose memory dwells with thee,
Loved Greece! all sunk and blighted as thou art
Though thought and step in western wilds be free,
Yet thine are still the daydreams of his heart:
The deserts spread between, the billows foam,
Thou, distant and in chains, are yet his spirit’s home.

XIX.

In vain for him the gay liannes entwine,
Or the green fire-fly sparkles through the brakes,
Or summer-winds waft odours from the pine,
As eve’s last blush is dying on the lakes.
Through thy fair vales his fancy roves the while,
Or breathes the freshness of Cithæron’s height,
Or dreams how softly Athens’ towers would smile,
Or Sunium’s ruins, in the fading light;
On Corinth’s cliff what sunset hues may sleep,
Or, at that placid hour, how calm th’ Ægean deep!

XX.

What scenes, what sunbeams, are to him like thine?
(The all of thine no tyrant could destroy!)
E’en to the stranger’s roving eye, they shine
Soft as a vision of remember’d joy.
And he who comes, the pilgrim of a day,
A passing wanderer o’er each Attic hill,
Sighs as his footsteps turn from thy decay,
To laughing climes, where all is splendour still;
And views with fond regret thy lessening shore,
As he would watch a star that sets to rise no more.

XXI.

Realm of sad beauty! thou art as a shrine
That Fancy visits with Devotion’s zeal,
To catch high thoughts and impulses divine,
And all the glow of soul enthusiasts feel
Amidst the tombs of heroes--for the brave
Whose dust, so many an age, hath been thy soil,
Foremost in honour’s phalanx, died to save
The land redeem’d and hallow’d by their toil;
And there is language in thy lightest gale,
That o’er the plains they won seems murmuring yet their tale.

XXII.

And he, whose heart is weary of the strife
Of meaner spirits, and whose mental gaze
Would shun the dull cold littleness of life,
Awhile to dwell amidst sublimer days,
Must turn to thee, whose every valley teems
With proud remembrances that cannot die.
Thy glens are peopled with inspiring dreams,
Thy winds, the voice of oracles gone by;
And midst thy laurel shades the wanderer hears
The sound of mighty names, the hymns of vanish’d years.

XXIII.

Through that deep solitude be his to stray,
By Faun and Oread loved in ages past,
Where clear Peneus winds his rapid way
Though the cleft heights, in antique grandeur vast.
Romantic Tempe! thou art yet the same--
Wild, as when sung by bards of elder time:[17]
Years, that have changed thy river’s classic name,[18]
Have left thee still in savage pomp sublime;
And from thine Alpine clefts and marble caves,
In living lustre still break forth the fountain waves.

XXIV.

Beneath thy mountain battlements and towers,
Where the rich arbute’s coral berries glow,[19]
Or midst th’ exuberance of thy forest bowers,
Casting deep shadows o’er the current’s flow,
Oft shall the pilgrim pause, in lone recess,
As rock and stream some glancing light have caught,
And gaze, till Nature’s mighty forms impress
His soul with deep sublimity of thought;
And linger oft, recalling many a tale,
That breeze, and wave, and wood seem whispering through thy dale.

XXV.

He, thought-entranced, may wander where of old
From Delphi’s chasm the mystic vapour rose,
And trembling nations heard their doom foretold
By the dread spirit throned midst rocks and snows.
Though its rich fanes be blended with the dust,
And silence now the hallow’d haunt possess,
Still is the scene of ancient rites august,
Magnificent in mountain loneliness;
Still inspiration hovel’s o’er the ground,
Where Greece her councils held,[20] her Pythian victors crown’d.

XXVI.

Or let his steps the rude gray cliffs explore
Of that wild pass, once dyed with Spartan blood,
When by the waves that break on Œta’s shore,
The few, the fearless, the devoted, stood!
Or rove where, shadowing Mantinea’s plain,
Bloom the wild laurels o’er the warlike dead,[21]
Or lone Platæa’s ruins yet remain
To mark the battle-field of ages fled:
Still o’er such scenes presides a sacred power,
Though Fiction’s gods have fled from fountain, grot, and bower.

XXVII.

Oh! still unblamed may fancy fondly deem
That, lingering yet, benignant genii dwell
Where mortal worth has hallow’d grove or stream,
To sway the heart with some ennobling spell;
For mightiest minds have felt their blest control
In the wood’s murmur, in the zephyr’s sigh,
And these are dreams that lend a voice and soul,
And a high power, to Nature’s majesty!
And who can rove o’er Grecian shores, nor feel,
Soft o’er his inmost heart, their secret magic steal?

XXVIII.

Yet many a sad reality is there,
That Fancy’s bright illusions cannot veil.
Pure laughs the light, and balmy breathes the air,
But Slavery’s mien will tell its bitter tale;
And there, not Peace, but Desolation, throws
Delusive quiet o’er full many a scene--
Deep as the brooding torpor of repose
That follows where the earthquake’s track hath been;
Or solemn calm on Ocean’s breast that lies,
When sinks the storm, and death has hush’d the seamen’s cries.

XXIX.

Hast thou beheld some sovereign spirit, hurl’d
By Fate’s rude tempest from its radiant sphere,
Doom’d to resign the homage of a world,
For Pity’s deepest sigh and saddest tear?
Oh! hast thou watch’d the awful wreck of mind
That weareth still a glory in decay?
Seen all that dazzles and delights mankind--
Thought, science, genius--to the storm a prey;
And o’er the blasted tree, the wither’d ground,
Despair’s wild nightshade spread, and darkly flourish round?

XXX.

So mayst thou gaze, in sad and awe-struck thought,
On the deep fall of that yet lovely clime:
Such there the ruin Time and Fate have wrought,
So changed the bright, the splendid, the sublime.
There the proud monuments of Valour’s name,
The mighty works Ambition piled on high,
The rich remains by Art bequeath’d to Fame--
Grace, beauty, grandeur, strength, and symmetry,
Blend in decay; while all that yet is fair
Seems only spared to tell how much hath perish’d there!

XXXI.

There, while around lie mingling in the dust
The column’s graceful shaft, with weeds o’er grown,
The mouldering torso, the forgotten bust.
The warrior’s urn, the altar’s mossy stone--
Amidst the loneliness of shatter’d fanes,
Still matchless monuments of other years--
O’er cypress groves or solitary plains,
Its eastern form the minaret proudly rears:
As on some captive city’s ruin’d wall
The victor’s banner waves, exulting o’er its fall.

XXXII.

Still, where that column of the mosque aspires,
Landmark of slavery, towering o’er the waste,
There science droops, the Muses hush their lyres
And o’er the blooms of fancy and of taste
Spreads the chill blight;--as in that orient isle
Where the dark upas taints the gale around,[22]
Within its precincts not a flower may smile,
Nor dew nor sunshine fertilise the ground;
Nor wild birds’ music float on zephyr’s breath,
But all is silence round, and solitude, and death.

XXXIII.

Far other influence pour’d the Crescent’s light
O’er conquer’d realms, in ages pass’d away;
Full and alone it beam’d, intensely bright,
While distant climes in midnight darkness lay.
Then rose th’ Alhambra, with its founts and shades,
Fair marble halls, alcoves, and orange bowers:
Its sculptured lions,[23] richly wrought arcades,
Aërial pillars, and enchanted towers;
Light, splendid, wild, as some Arabian tale
Would picture fairy domes that fleet before the gale.

XXXIV.

Then foster’d genius lent each caliph’s throne
Lustre barbaric pomp could ne’er attain;
And stars unnumber’d o’er the orient shone,
Bright as that Pleïad, sphered in Mecca’s fane.[24]
From Bagdat’s palaces the choral strains
Rose and re-echoed to the desert’s bound,
And Science, woo’d on Egypt’s burning plains,
Rear’d her majestic head with glory crown’d;
And the wild Muses breathed romantic lore
From Syria’s palmy groves to Andalusia’s shore.

XXXV.

Those years have past in radiance--they have past,
As sinks the daystar in the tropic main;
His parting beams no soft reflection cast,
They burn--are quench’d--and deepest shadows reign.
And Fame and Science have not left a trace
In the vast regions of the Moslem’s power,--
Regions, to intellect a desert space,
A wild without a fountain or a flower,
Where towers Oppression midst the deepening glooms,
As dark and lone ascends the cypress midst the tombs.

XXXVI.

Alas for thee, fair Greece! when Asia pour’d
Her fierce fanatics to Byzantium’s wall;
When Europe sheath’d, in apathy, her sword,
And heard unmoved the fated city’s call.
No bold crusaders ranged their serried line
Of spears and banners round a falling throne;
And thou, O last and noblest Constantine![25]
Didst meet the storm unshrinking and alone.
Oh! blest to die in freedom, though in vain--
Thine empire’s proud exchange the grave, and not the chain!

XXXVII.

Hush’d is Byzantium--’tis the dead of night--
The closing night of that imperial race![26]
And all is vigil--but the eye of light
Shall soon unfold, a wilder scene to trace:
There is a murmuring stillness on the train
Thronging the midnight streets, at morn to die;
And to the cross, in fair Sophia’s fane,
For the last time is raised Devotion’s eye;
And, in his heart while faith’s bright visions rise,
There kneels the high-soul’d prince, the summon’d of the skies.

XXXVIII.

Day breaks in light and glory--’tis the hour
Of conflict and of fate--the war-note calls--
Despair hath lent a stern, delirious power
To the brave few that guard the rampart walls.
Far over Marmora’s waves th’ artillery’s peal
Proclaims an empire’s doom in every note;
Tambour and trumpet swell the clash of steel,
Round spire and dome the clouds of battle float;
From camp and wave rush on the Crescent’s host,
And the Seven Towers[27] are scaled, and all is won and lost.

XXXIX.

Then, Greece! the tempest rose that burst on thee,
Land of the bard, the warrior, and the sage!
Oh! where were then thy sons, the great, the free,
Whose deeds are guiding stars from age to age?
Though firm thy battlements of crags and snows,
And bright the memory of thy days of pride,
In mountain might though Corinth’s fortress rose,
On, unresisted, roll’d th’ invading tide!
Oh! vain the rock, the rampart, and the tower,
If Freedom guard them not with Mind’s unconquer’d power.

XL.

Where were th’ avengers then, whose viewless might
Preserved inviolate their awful fane,[28]
When through the steep defiles, to Delphi’s height,
In martial splendour pour’d the Persian’s train?
Then did those mighty and mysterious Powers,
Arm’d with the elements, to vengeance wake,
Call the dread storms to darken round their towers,
Hurl down the rocks, and bid the thunders break;
Till far around, with deep and fearful clang,
Sounds of unearthly war through wild Parnassus rang.

XLI.

Where was the spirit of the victor-throng
Whose tombs are glorious by Scamander’s tide,
Whose names are bright in everlasting song,
The lords of war, the praised, the deified?
Where he, the hero of a thousand lays,
Who from the dead at Marathon arose[29]
All arm’d; and beaming on the Athenians’ gaze,
A battle-meteor, guided to their foes?
Or they whose forms to Alaric’s awe-struck eye,[30]
Hovering o’er Athens, blazed in airy panoply?

XLII.

Ye slept, O heroes! chief ones of the earth![31]
High demigods of ancient days! ye slept:
There lived no spark of your ascendant worth
When o’er your land the victor Moslem swept.
No patriot then the sons of freedom led,
In mountain pass devotedly to die;
The martyr-spirit of resolve was fled,
And the high soul’s unconquer’d buoyancy;
And by your graves, and on your battle-plains,
Warriors! your children knelt to wear the stranger’s chains.

XLIII.

Now have your trophies vanish’d, and your homes
Are moulder’d from the earth, while scarce remain
E’en the faint traces of the ancient tombs
That mark where sleep the slayers or the slain.
Your deeds are with the days of glory flown,
The lyres are hush’d that swell’d your fame afar,
The halls that echo’d to their sounds are gone,
Perish’d the conquering weapons of your war;[32]
And if a mossy stone your names retain,
’Tis but to tell your sons, for them ye died in vain.

XLIV.

Yet, where some lone sepulchral relic stands,
That with those names tradition hallows yet,
Oft shall the wandering son of other lands
Linger in solemn thought and hush’d regret.
And still have legends mark’d the lonely spot
Where low the dust of Agamemnon lies;
And shades of kings and leaders unforgot,
Hovering around, to fancy’s vision rise.
Souls of the heroes! seek your rest again,
Nor mark how changed the realms that saw your glory’s reign.

XLV.

Lo, where th’ Albanian spreads his despot sway
O’er Thessaly’s rich vales and glowing plains,
Whose sons in sullen abjectness obey,
Nor lift the hand indignant at its chains:
Oh! doth the land that gave Achilles birth,
And many a chief of old illustrious line,
Yield not one spirit of unconquer’d worth
To kindle those that now in bondage pine?
No! on its mountain-air is slavery’s breath,
And terror chills the hearts whose utter’d plaints were death.

XLVI.

Yet if thy light, fair Freedom, rested there,
How rich in charms were that romantic clime,
With streams, and woods, and pastoral valleys fair,
And wall’d with mountains, haughtily sublime!
Heights that might well be deem’d the Muses’ reign,
Since, claiming proud alliance with the skies,
They lose in loftier spheres their wild domain--
Meet home for those retired divinities
That love, where nought of earth may e’er intrude,
Brightly to dwell on high, in lonely sanctitude.

XLVII.

There in rude grandeur daringly ascends
Stern Pindus, rearing many a pine-clad height;
He with the clouds his bleak dominion blends,
Frowning o’er vales in woodland verdure bright.
Wild and august in consecrated pride,
There through the deep-blue heaven Olympus towers,
Girdled with mists, light-floating as to hide
The rock-built palace of immortal powers;
Where far on high the sunbeam finds repose,
Amidst th’ eternal pomp of forests and of snows.

XLVIII.

Those savage cliffs and solitudes might seem
The chosen haunts where Freedom’s foot would roam;
She loves to dwell by glen and torrent-stream,
And make the rocky fastnesses her home.
And in the rushing of the mountain flood,
In the wild eagle’s solitary cry,
In sweeping winds that peal through cave and wood,
There is a voice of stern sublimity,
That swells her spirit to a loftier mood
Of solemn joy severe, of power, of fortitude.

XLIX.