Or fate, can quell the free!
Alas for Virtue, when

Torments, or contumely, or the sneers
Of erring-judging men,

Can break the heart where it abides!

Alas! if Love, whose smile makes this obscure world splendid
Can change, with its false times and tides,
Like hope and terror—

Alas for Love!

And Truth, who wanderest lone and unbefriended,
If thou canst veil thy lie-consuming mirror
Before the dazzled eyes of Error,
Alas for thee, image of the Above!
SEMICHORUS II.

Repulse, with plumes from Conquest torn,
Led the Ten-thousand from the limits of the morn
Through many an hostile anarchy:

At length they wept aloud and cried "The sea! the sea!"-
Through exile, persecution, and despair,

Rome was-and young Atlantis shall become-
The wonder, or the terror, or the tomb,

Of all whose step wakes Power lulled in her savage lair.
But Greece was as a hermit child

Whose fairest thoughts and limbs were built
To woman's growth by dreams so mild

She knew not pain or guilt.

And now... O Victory, blush! and Empire, tremble!
When ye desert the free.

If Greece must be

A wreck, yet shall its fragments re-assemble,
And build themselves again impregnably
In a diviner clime,

To Amphionic music, on some cape sublime
Which frowns above the idle foam of time.

SEMICHORUS I.

Let the tyrants rule the desert they have made;
Let the free possess the paradise they claim;
Be the fortune of our fierce oppressors weighed
With our ruin, our resistance, and our name!
SEMICHORUS II.

Our dead shall be the seed of their decay,
Our survivors be the shadows of their pride;
Our adversity a dream to pass away,
Their dishonour a remembrance to abide.

Voice without.

Victory! victory! The bought Briton sends

The keys of ocean to the Islamite.

Now shall the blazon of the cross be veiled,
And British skill directing Othman might
Thunder-strike rebel victory. Oh keep holy
This jubilee of unrevengèd blood!

Kill! crush! despoil! Let not a Greek escape!

SEMICHORUS I.

Darkness has dawned in the east

On the noon of time:

The death-birds descend to their feast
From the hungry clime.

Let Freedom and Peace flee far

To a sunnier strand,

And follow Love's folding-star

To the evening land.

SEMICHORUS II.

The young moon has fed
Her exhausted horn

With the sunset's fire;

The weak day is dead,

But the night is not born;

And, like loveliness panting with wild desire
While it trembles with fear and delight,

Hesperus flies from awakening night,
And pants in its beauty and speed with light
Fast-flashing, soft, and bright.

Thou beacon of love! thou lamp of the free!
Guide us far far away

To climes where now, veiled by the ardour of day,
Thou art hidden

From waves on which weary noon
Faints in her summer swoon,

Between kingless continents sinless as Eden,
Around mountains and islands inviolably
Pranked on the sapphire sea.

SEMICHORUS I.

Through the sunset of hope,
Like the shapes of a dream,

What paradise islands of glory gleam!
Beneath heaven's cope,

Their shadows more clear float by

The sound of their oceans, the light of their sky,
The music and fragrance their solitudes breathe,
Burst like morning on dream, or like heaven on death,
Through the walls of our prison ;-

And Greece, which was dead, is arisen!

CHORUS.

The world's great age begins anew,

The golden years return,

The earth doth like a snake renew

Her winter weeds outworn:

Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.

A brighter Hellas rears its mountains
From waves serener far;

425

A new Peneus rolls his fountains
Against the morning star;

Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep
Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep.

A loftier Argo cleaves the main,
Fraught with a later prize;
Another Orpheus sings again,

And loves, and weeps, and dies;
A new Ulysses leaves once more
Calypso for his native shore.

Oh! write no more the tale of Troy,
If earth death's scroll must be-
Nor mix with Laian rage the joy
Which dawns upon the free,
Although a subtler Sphinx renew
Riddles of death Thebes never knew.
Another Athens shall arise,

And to remoter time

Bequeath, like sunset to the skies,
The splendour of its prime;

And leave, if nought so bright may live,
All earth can take or heaven can give.
Saturn and Love their long repose

Shall burst, more bright and good Than all who fell, than one who rose, Than many unsubdued:

Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers,
But votive tears and symbol flowers.

Oh cease! must hate and death return ?
Cease! must men kill and die?
Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn
Of bitter prophecy !

The world is weary of the past,—

Oh might it die or rest at last!

I. OH! there are spirits in the air,

And genii of the evening breeze,
And gentle ghosts with eyes as fair

As starbeams among twilight trees:-
Such lovely ministers to meet

Oft hast thou turned from men thy lonely feet.

2. With mountain winds, and babbling springs, And moonlight seas, that are the voice Of these inexplicable things,

Thou didst hold commune, and rejoice When they did answer thee. But they Cast like a worthless boon thy love away.

3. And thou hast sought in starry eyes

Beams that were never meant for thine,
Another's wealth;-tame sacrifice

To a fond faith! Still dost thou pine?
Still dost thou hope that greeting hands,
Voice, looks, or lips, may answer thy demands?

4. Ah! wherefore didst thou build thine hope
On the false earth's inconstancy?
Did thine own mind afford no scope

Of love or moving thoughts to thee-
That natural scenes or human smiles

Could steal the power to wind thee in their wiles?
5. Yes, all the faithless smiles are fled

Whose falsehood left thee broken-hearted;
The glory of the moon is dead;

Night's ghosts and dreams have now departed :
Thine own soul still is true to thee,

But changed to a foul fiend through misery.
6. This fiend, whose ghastly presence ever
Beside thee like thy shadow hangs,
Dream not to chase ;-the mad endeavour
Would scourge thee to severer pangs.
Be as thou art. Thy settled fate,
Dark as it is, all change would aggravate.

STANZAS-APRIL 1814.

AWAY! the moor is dark beneath the moon, Rapid clouds have drunk the last pale beam of even : Away! the gathering winds will call the darkness soon, And profoundest midnight shroud the serene lights of heaven. Pause not! the time is past! Every voice cries “ Away!' Tempt not with one last glance thy friend's ungentle mood: Thy lover's eye, so glazed and cold, dares not entreat thy stay: Duty and dereliction guide thee back to solitude.

Away, away! to thy sad and silent home';

Pour bitter tears on its desolated hearth;

Watch the dim shades as like ghosts they go and come,
And complicate strange webs of melancholy mirth.

The leaves of wasted autumn woods shall float around thine head,
The blooms of dewy Spring shall gleam beneath thy feet:
But thy soul or this world must fade in the frost that binds the
dead,

Ere midnight's frown and morning's smile, ere thou and peace, may

meet.

The cloud shadows of midnight possess their own repose, For the weary winds are silent, or the moon is in the deep; Some respite to its turbulence unresting ocean knows; Whatever moves or toils or grieves hath its appointed sleep.

Thou in the grave shalt rest :-yet, till the phantoms flee Which that house and heath and garden made dear to thee erewhile,

Thy remembrance and repentance and deep musings are not free From the music of two voices, and the light of one sweet smile.