What mortal his own doom may guess? – | |
Let none despond, let none despair! | |
855 | To-morrow the Borysthenes |
May see our coursers graze at ease | |
Upon his Turkish bank, – and never | |
Had I such welcome for a river | |
As I shall yield when safely there. | |
860 | Comrades, good night!’ – The Hetman threw |
His length beneath the oak-tree shade, | |
With leafy couch already made, | |
A bed nor comfortless nor new | |
To him, who took his rest whene’er | |
865 | The hour arrived, no matter where: |
His eyes the hastening slumbers steep. | |
And if ye marvel Charles forgot | |
To thank his tale, | |
The king had been an hour asleep. |
Stanzas to the Po | |
I | |
River, that rollest by the ancient walls, | |
Where dwells the lady of my love, when she | |
Walks by thy brink, and there perchance recalls | |
A faint and fleeting memory of me; | |
II | |
5 | What if thy deep and ample stream should be |
A mirror of my heart, where she may read | |
The thousand thoughts I now betray to thee, | |
Wild as thy wave, and headlong as thy speed! | |
III | |
What do I say — a mirror of my heart? | |
10 | Are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong? |
Such as my feelings were and are, thou art; | |
And such as thou art were my passions long. | |
IV | |
Time may have somewhat tamed them, — not for ever; | |
Thou overflow’st thy banks, and not for aye | |
15 | Thy bosom overboils, congenial river! |
Thy floods subside, and mine have sunk away. | |
V | |
But left long wrecks behind, and now again, | |
Borne in our old unchanged career we move; | |
Thou tendest wildly onwards to the main, | |
20 | And I — to loving |
VI | |
The current I behold will sweep beneath | |
Her native walls and murmur at her feet; | |
Her eyes will look on thee, when she shall breathe | |
The twilight air, unharm’d by summer’s heat. | |
VII | |
25 | She will look on thee, — I have look’d on thee, |
Full of that thought; and, from that moment, ne’er | |
Thy waters could I dream of, name, or see, | |
Without the inseparable sigh for her! | |
VIII | |
Her bright eyes will be imaged in thy stream, — | |
30 | Yes! they will meet the wave I gaze on now: |
Mine cannot witness, even in a dream, | |
That happy wave repass me in its flow! | |
IX | |
The wave that bears my tears returns no more: | |
Will she return by whom that wave shall sweep? — | |
35 | Both tread thy banks, both wander on thy shore, |
I by thy source, she by the dark-blue deep. | |
X | |
But that which keepeth us apart is not | |
Distance, nor depth of wave, nor space of earth, | |
But the distraction of a various lot, | |
40 | As various as the climates of our birth. |
XI | |
A stranger loves the lady of the land, | |
Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood | |
Is all meridian, as if never fann’d | |
By the black wind that chills the polar flood. | |
XII | |
45 | My blood is all meridian; were it not, |
I had not left my clime, nor should I be, | |
In spite of tortures, ne’er to be forgot, | |
A slave again of love, — at least of thee. | |
XIII | |
’Tis vain to struggle — let me perish young — | |
50 | Live as I lived, and love as I have loved; |
To dust if I return, from dust I sprung, | |
And then, at least, my heart can ne’er be moved. |
The Isles of Greece | |
1 | |
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 Phœbus sprung! | |
5 | Eternal summer gilds them yet, |
But all, except their sun, is set. | |
2 | |
The Scian and the Teian muse, | |
The hero’s harp, the lover’s lute, | |
Have found the fame your shores refuse: | |
10 | Their place of birth alone is mute |
To sounds which echo further west | |
Than your sires’ ‘Islands of the Blest.’ | |
3 | |
The mountains look on Marathon — | |
And Marathon looks on the sea; | |
15 | And musing there an hour alone, |
I dream’d that Greece might still be free; | |
For standing on the Persians’ grave, | |
I could not deem myself a slave. | |
4 | |
A king sate on the rocky brow | |
20 | Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis; |
And ships, by thousands, lay below, | |
And men in nations; – all were his! | |
He counted them at break of day — | |
And when the sun set where were they? | |
5 | |
25 | And where are they? and where art thou, |
My country? On thy voiceless shore | |
The heroic lay is tuneless now – | |
The heroic bosom beats no more! | |
And must thy lyre, so long divine, | |
30 | Degenerate into hands like mine? |
6 | |
’Tis something, in the dearth of fame, | |
Though link’d among a fetter’d race, | |
To feel at least a patriot’s shame, | |
Even as I sing, suffuse my face; | |
35 | For what is left the poet here? |
For Greeks a blush – for Greece a tear. | |
7 | |
Must | |
Must | |
Earth! render back from out thy breast | |
40 | A remnant of our Spartan dead! |
Of the three hundred grant but three, | |
To make a new Thermopylae! | |
8 | |
What, silent still? and silent all? | |
Ah! no; – the voices of the dead | |
45 | 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. | |
9 | |
In vain – in vain: strike other chords; | |
50 | 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 call — | |
How answers each bold Bacchanal! | |
10 | |
55 | 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 – | |
60 | Think ye he meant them for a slave? |
11 | |
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 Polycrates – | |
65 | A tyrant; but our masters then |
Were still, at least, our countrymen. | |
12 | |
The tyrant of the Chersonese | |
Was freedom’s best and bravest friend; | |
That | |
70 | Oh! that the present hour would lend |
Another despot of the kind! | |
Such chains as his were sure to bind. | |
13 | |
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! | |
On Suli’s rock, and Parga’s shore, | |
75 | Exists the remnant of a line |
Such as the Doric mothers bore; | |
And there, perhaps, some seed is sown, | |
The Heracleidan blood might own. | |
14 | |
Trust not for freedom to the Franks – | |
80 | They have a king who buys and sells; |
In native swords, and native ranks, | |
The only hope of courage dwells: | |
But Turkish force, and Latin fraud, | |
Would break your shield, however broad. | |
15 | |
85 | Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! |
Our virgins dance beneath the shade – | |
I see their glorious black eyes shine; | |
But gazing on each glowing maid, | |
My own the burning tear-drop laves, | |
90 | To think such breasts must suckle slaves. |
16 | |
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: | |
95 | A land of slaves shall ne’er be mine – |
Dash down yon cup of Samian wine! |