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.

But from those hills the radiance of her smile
Hath vanish’d long, her step hath fled afar;
O’er Suli’s frowning rocks she paused a while,[33]
Kindling the watch-fires of the mountain war.
And brightly glow’d her ardent spirit there,
Still brightest midst privation: o’er distress
It cast romantic splendour, and despair
But fann’d that beacon of the wilderness;
And rude ravine, and precipice, and dell
Sent their deep echoes forth, her rallying voice to swell.

L.

Dark children of the hills! ’twas then ye wrought
Deeds of fierce daring, rudely, sternly grand;
As midst your craggy citadels ye fought,
And women mingled with your warrior band.
Then on the cliff the frantic mother stood[34]
High o’er the river’s darkly-rolling wave,
And hurl’d, in dread delirium, to the flood
Her free-born infant, ne’er to be a slave.
For all was lost—all, save the power to die
The wild indignant death of savage liberty.

LI.

Now is that strife a tale of vanish’d days,
With mightier things forgotten soon to lie;
Yet oft hath minstrel sung, in lofty lays,
Deeds less adventurous, energies less high.
And the dread struggle’s fearful memory still
O’er each wild rock a wilder aspect throws;
Sheds darker shadows o’er the frowning hill,
More solemn quiet o’er the glen’s repose;
Lends to the rustling pines a deeper moan,
And the hoarse river’s voice a murmur not its own.

LII.

For stillness now—the stillness of the dead—
Hath wrapt that conflict’s lone and awful scene;
And man’s forsaken homes, in ruin spread,
Tell where the storming of the cliffs hath been.
And there, o’er wastes magnificently rude,
What race may rove, unconscious of the chain?
Those realms have now no desert unsubdued,
Where Freedom’s banner may be rear’d again:
Sunk are the ancient dwellings of her fame,
The children of her sons inherit but their name.

LIII.

Go, seek proud Sparta’s monuments and fanes!
In scatter’d fragments o’er the vale they lie;
Of all they were not e’en enough remains
To lend their fall a mournful majesty.[35]
Birth-place of those whose names we first revered
In song and story—temple of the free!
O thou, the stern, the haughty, and the fear’d,
Are such thy relics, and can this be thee?
Thou shouldst have left a giant wreck behind,
And e’en in ruin claim’d the wonder of mankind.

LIV.

For thine were spirits cast in other mould
Than all beside—and proved by ruder test;
They stood alone—the proud, the firm, the bold,
With the same seal indelibly imprest.
Theirs were no bright varieties of mind,
One image stamp’d the rough, colossal race,
In rugged grandeur frowning o’er mankind,
Stern, and disdainful of each milder grace;
As to the sky some mighty rock may tower,
Whose front can brave the storm, but will not rear the flower.

LV.

Such were thy sons—their life a battle-day!
Their youth one lesson how for thee to die!
Closed is that task, and they have passed away
Like softer beings train’d to aims less high.
Yet bright on earth their fame who proudly fell,
True to their shields, the champions of thy cause,
Whose funeral column bade the stranger tell
How died the brave, obedient to thy laws![36]
O lofty mother of heroic worth,
How couldst thou live to bring a meaner offspring forth?

LVI.

Hadst thou but perish’d with the free, nor known
A second race, when glory’s noon went by,
Then had thy name in single brightness shone
A watchword on the helm of liberty!
Thou shouldst have pass’d with all the light of fame,
And proudly sunk in ruins, not in chains.
But slowly set thy star midst clouds of shame,
And tyrants rose amidst thy falling fanes;
And thou, surrounded by thy warriors’ graves,
Hast drain’d the bitter cup once mingled for thy slaves.

LVII.

Now all is o’er—for thee alike are flown
Freedom’s bright noon and slavery’s twilight cloud;
And in thy fall, as in thy pride, alone,
Deep solitude is round thee as a shroud.
Home of Leonidas! thy halls are low;
From their cold altars have thy Lares fled;
O’er thee, unmark’d, the sunbeams fade or glow,
And wild-flowers wave, unbent by human tread;
And midst thy silence, as the grave’s profound,
A voice, a step, would seem as some unearthly sound.

LVIII.

Taÿgetus still lifts his awful brow
High o’er the mouldering city of the dead,
Sternly sublime; while o’er his robe of snow
Heaven’s floating tints their warm suffusions spread.
And yet his rippling wave Eurotas leads
By tombs and ruins o’er the silent plain;
While, whispering there, his own wild graceful reeds
Rise as of old, when hail’d by classic strain;
There the rose-laurels still in beauty wave,[37]
And a frail shrub survives to bloom o’er Sparta’s grave.

LIX.

Oh, thus it is with man! A tree, a flower,
While nations perish, still renews its race,
And o’er the fallen records of his power
Spreads in wild pomp, or smiles in fairy grace.
The laurel shoots when those have pass’d away,
Once rivals for its crown, the brave, the free;
The rose is flourishing o’er beauty’s clay,
The myrtle blows when love hath ceased to be;
Green waves the bay when song and bard are fled,
And all that round us blooms is blooming o’er the dead.

LX.

And still the olive spreads its foliage round
Morea’s fallen sanctuaries and towers.
Once its green boughs Minerva’s votaries crown’d,
Deem’d a meet offering for celestial powers.
The suppliant’s hand its holy branches bore;[38]
They waved around the Olympic victor’s head;
And, sanctified by many a rite of yore,
Its leaves the Spartan’s honour’d bier o’erspread.
Those rites have vanish’d—but o’er vale and hill
Its fruitful groves arise, revered and hallow’d still.[39]

LXI.

Where now thy shrines, Eleusis! where thy fane
Of fearful visions, mysteries wild and high?
The pomp of rites, the sacrificial train,
The long procession’s awful pageantry?
Quench’d is the torch of Ceres[40]—all around
Decay hath spread the stillness of her reign;
There never more shall choral hymns resound
O’er the hush’d earth and solitary main,
Whose wave from Salamis deserted flows,
To bathe a silent shore of desolate repose.

LXII.

And oh, ye secret and terrific powers!
Dark oracles! in depth of groves that dwelt,
How are they sunk, the altars of your bowers,
Where Superstition trembled as she knelt!
Ye, the unknown, the viewless ones! that made
The elements your voice, the wind and wave;
Spirits! whose influence darken’d many a shade,
Mysterious visitants of fount and cave!
How long your power the awe-struck nations sway’d,
How long earth dreamt of you, and shudderingly obey’d!

LXIII.

And say, what marvel, in those early days,
While yet the light of heaven-born truth was not,
If man around him cast a fearful gaze,
Peopling with shadowy powers each dell and grot?
Awful is nature in her savage forms,
Her solemn voice commanding in its might,
And mystery then was in the rush of storms,
The gloom of woods, the majesty of night;
And mortals heard Fate’s language in the blast,
And rear’d your forest-shrines, ye phantoms of the past!

LXIV.

Then through the foliage not a breeze might sigh
But with prophetic sound—a waving tree,
A meteor flashing o’er the summer sky,
A bird’s wild flight reveal’d the things to be.
All spoke of unseen natures, and convey’d
Their inspiration; still they hover’d round,
Hallow’d the temple, whisper’d through the shade,
Pervaded loneliness, gave soul to sound;
Of them the fount, the forest, murmur’d still,
Their voice was in the stream, their footstep on the hill.

LXV.

Now is the train of Superstition flown!
Unearthly beings walk on earth no more;
The deep wind swells with no portentous tone,
The rustling wood breathes no fatidic lore.
Fled are the phantoms of Livadia’s cave,
There dwell no shadows, but of crag and steep;
Fount of Oblivion! in thy gushing wave,[41]
That murmurs nigh, those powers of terror sleep.
Oh that such dreams alone had fled that clime!
But Greece is changed in all that could be changed by time!

LXVI.

Her skies are those whence many a mighty bard
Caught inspiration, glorious as their beams;
Her hills the same that heroes died to guard,
Her vales, that foster’d Art’s divinest dreams!
But that bright spirit o’er the land that shone,
And all around pervading influence pour’d,
That lent the harp of Æschylus its tone,
And proudly hallow’d Lacedæmon’s sword,
And guided Phidias o’er the yielding stone,
With them its ardours lived—with them its light is flown.

LXVII.

Thebes, Corinth, Argos!—ye renown’d of old,
Where are your chiefs of high romantic name?
How soon the tale of ages may be told!
A page, a verse, records the fall of fame,
The work of centuries. We gaze on you,
O cities! once the glorious and the free,
The lofty tales that charm’d our youth renew,
And wondering ask, if these their scenes could be?
Search for the classic fane, the regal tomb,
And find the mosque alone—a record of their doom!

LXVIII.

How oft hath war his host of spoilers pour’d,
Fair Elis! o’er thy consecrated vales?[42]
There have the sunbeams glanced on spear and sword,
And banners floated on the balmy gales.
Once didst thou smile, secure in sanctitude,
As some enchanted isle mid stormy seas;
On thee no hostile footstep might intrude,
And pastoral sounds alone were on thy breeze.
Forsaken home of peace! that spell is broke:
Thou too hast heard the storm, and bow’d beneath the yoke.

LXIX.

And through Arcadia’s wild and lone retreats
Far other sounds have echo’d than the strain
Of faun and dryad, from their woodland seats,
Or ancient reed of peaceful mountain-swain!
There, though at times Alpheus yet surveys,
On his green banks renew’d, the classic dance,
And nymph-like forms, and wild melodious lays,
Revive the sylvan scenes of old romance;
Yet brooding fear and dark suspicion dwell
Midst Pan’s deserted haunts, by fountain, cave, and dell.

LXX.

But thou, fair Attica! whose rocky bound
All art and nature’s richest gifts enshrined,
Thou little sphere, whose soul-illumined round
Concentrated each sunbeam of the mind;
Who, as the summit of some Alpine height
Glows earliest, latest, with the blush of day,
Didst first imbibe the splendours of the light,[43]
And smile the longest in its lingering ray;
Oh! let us gaze on thee, and fondly deem
The past awhile restored, the present but a dream.

LXXI.

Let Fancy’s vivid hues awhile prevail—
Wake at her call—be all thou wert once more!
Hark! hymns of triumph swell on every gale—
Lo! bright processions move along thy shore;
Again thy temples, midst the olive-shade,
Lovely in chaste simplicity arise;
And graceful monuments, in grove and glade,
Catch the warm tints of thy resplendent skies;
And sculptured forms, of high and heavenly mien,
In their calm beauty smile around the sun-bright scene.

LXXII.

Again renew’d by Thought’s creative spells,
In all her pomp thy city, Theseus! towers:
Within, around, the light of glory dwells
On art’s fair fabrics, wisdom’s holy bowers.
There marble fanes in finish’d grace ascend,
The pencil’s world of life and beauty glows;
Shrines, pillars, porticoes, in grandeur blend,
Rich with the trophies of barbaric foes;
And groves of platane wave in verdant pride,
The sage’s blest retreats, by calm Ilissus’ tide.

LXXIII.

Bright as that fairy vision of the wave,
Raised by the magic of Morgana’s wand,[44]
On summer seas that undulating lave
Romantic Sicily’s Arcadian strand;
That pictured scene of airy colonnades,
Light palaces, in shadowy glory drest,
Enchanted groves, and temples, and arcades,
Gleaming and floating on the ocean’s breast;
Athens! thus fair the dream of thee appears,
As Fancy’s eye pervades the veiling cloud of years.

LXXIV.

Still be that cloud withdrawn—oh! mark on high,
Crowning yon hill, with temples richly graced,
That fane, august in perfect symmetry,
The purest model of Athenian taste.
Fair Parthenon! thy Doric pillars rise
In simple dignity, thy marble’s hue
Unsullied shines, relieved by brilliant skies,
That round thee spread their deep ethereal blue;
And art o’er all thy light proportions throws
The harmony of grace, the beauty of repose.

LXXV.

And lovely o’er thee sleeps the sunny glow,
When morn and eve in tranquil splendour reign,
And on thy sculptures, as they smile, bestow
Hues that the pencil emulates in vain.
Then the fair forms by Phidias wrought, unfold
Each latent grace, developing in light;
Catch, from soft clouds of purple and of gold,
Each tint that passes, tremulously bright;
And seem indeed whate’er devotion deems,
While so suffused with heaven, so mingling with its beams.

LXXVI.

But oh! what words the vision may portray,
The form of sanctitude that guards thy shrine?
There stands thy goddess, robed in war’s array,
Supremely glorious, awfully divine!
With spear and helm she stands, and flowing vest,
And sculptured ægis, to perfection wrought;
And on each heavenly lineament imprest,
Calmly sublime, the majesty of thought—
The pure intelligence, the chaste repose—
All that a poet’s dream around Minerva throws.

LXXVII.

Bright age of Pericles! let fancy still
Through time’s deep shadows all thy splendour trace,
And in each work of art’s consummate skill
Hail the free spirit of thy lofty race:
That spirit, roused by every proud reward
That hope could picture, glory could bestow,
Foster’d by all the sculptor and the bard
Could give of immortality below.
Thus were thy heroes form’d, and o’er their name,
Thus did thy genius shed imperishable fame.

LXXVIII.

Mark in the throng’d Ceramicus, the train
Of mourners weeping o’er the martyr’d brave:
Proud be the tears devoted to the slain,
Holy the amaranth strew’d upon their grave![45]
And hark! unrivall’d eloquence proclaims
Their deeds, their trophies, with triumphant voice!
Hark! Pericles records their honour’d names![46]
Sons of the fallen, in their lot rejoice:
What hath life brighter than so bright a doom?
What power hath fate to soil the garlands of the tomb?

LXXIX.

Praise to the valiant dead! for them doth art
Exhaust her skill, their triumphs bodying forth;
Theirs are enshrinèd names, and every heart
Shall bear the blazon’d impress of their worth.
Bright on the dreams of youth their fame shall rise,
Their fields of fight shall epic song record;
And, when the voice of battle rends the skies,
Their name shall be their country’s rallying word!
While fane and column rise august to tell
How Athens honours those for her who proudly fell.

LXXX.

City of Theseus! bursting on the mind,
Thus dost thou rise, in all thy glory fled!
Thus guarded by the mighty of mankind,
Thus hallow’d by the memory of the dead:
Alone in beauty and renown—a scene
Whose tints are drawn from freedom’s loveliest ray.
’Tis but a vision now—yet thou hast been
More than the brightest vision might portray;
And every stone, with but a vestige fraught
Of thee, hath latent power to wake some lofty thought.

LXXXI.

Fall’n are thy fabrics, that so oft have rung
To choral melodies and tragic lore;
Now is the lyre of Sophocles unstrung,
The song that hail’d Harmodius peals no more.
Thy proud Piræus is a desert strand,
Thy stately shrines are mouldering on their hill,
Closed are the triumphs of the sculptor’s hand,
The magic voice of eloquence is still;
Minerva’s veil is rent[47]—her image gone;
Silent the sage’s bower—the warrior’s tomb o’erthrown.

LXXXII.

Yet in decay thine exquisite remains
Wondering we view, and silently revere,
As traces left on earth’s forsaken plains
By vanish’d beings of a nobler sphere!
Not all the old magnificence of Rome,
All that dominion there hath left to time—
Proud Coliseum, or commanding dome,
Triumphal arch, or obelisk sublime,
Can bid such reverence o’er the spirit steal,
As aught by thee imprest with beauty’s plastic seal.

LXXXIII.

Though still the empress of the sunburnt waste,
Palmyra rises, desolately grand—
Though with rich gold[48] and massy sculpture graced,
Commanding still, Persepolis may stand
In haughty solitude—though sacred Nile
The first-born temples of the world surveys,
And many an awful and stupendous pile
Thebes of the hundred gates e’en yet displays;
City of Pericles! oh who, like thee,
Can teach how fair the works of mortal hand may be?

LXXXIV.

Thou led’st the way to that illumined sphere
Where sovereign beauty dwells; and thence didst bear,
Oh, still triumphant in that high career!
Bright archetypes of all the grand and fair.
And still to thee th’ enlighten’d mind hath flown
As to her country,—thou hast been to earth
A cynosure,—and, e’en from victory’s throne,
Imperial Rome gave homage to thy worth;
And nations, rising to their fame afar,
Still to thy model turn, as seamen to their star.

LXXXV.

Glory to those whose relics thus arrest
The gaze of ages! Glory to the free!
For they, they only, could have thus imprest
Their mighty image on the years to be!
Empires and cities in oblivion lie,
Grandeur may vanish, conquest be forgot,—
To leave on earth renown that cannot die,
Of high-soul’d genius is th’ unrivall’d lot.
Honour to thee, O Athens! thou hast shown
What mortals may attain, and seized the palm alone.

LXXXVI.

Oh! live there those who view with scornful eyes
All that attests the brightness of thy prime?
Yes; they who dwell beneath thy lovely skies,
And breathe th’ inspiring ether of thy clime!
Their path is o’er the mightiest of the dead,
Their homes are midst the works of noblest arts;
Yet all around their gaze, beneath their tread,
Not one proud thrill of loftier thought imparts.
Such are the conquerors of Minerva’s land,
Where Genius first reveal’d the triumphs of his hand!

LXXXVII.

For them in vain the glowing light may smile
O’er the pale marble, colouring’s warmth to shed,
And in chaste beauty many a sculptured pile
Still o’er the dust of heroes lift its head.
No patriot feeling binds them to the soil,
Whose tombs and shrines their fathers have not rear’d;
Their glance is cold indifference, and their toil
But to destroy what ages have revered—
As if exulting sternly to erase
Whate’er might prove that land had nursed a nobler race.

LXXXVIII.

And who may grieve that, rescued from their hands,
Spoilers of excellence and foes to art,
Thy relics, Athens! borne to other lands,
Claim homage still to thee from every heart
Though now no more th’ exploring stranger’s sight,
Fix’d in deep reverence on Minerva’s fane,
Shall hail, beneath their native heaven of light,
All that remain’d of forms adored in vain;
A few short years—and, vanish’d from the scene,
To blend with classic dust their proudest lot had been.

LXXXIX.

Fair Parthenon! yet still must Fancy weep
For thee, thou work of nobler spirits flown.
Bright, as of old, the sunbeams o’er thee sleep
In all their beauty still—and thine is gone!
Empires have sunk since thou wert first revered,
And varying rights have sanctified thy shrine.
The dust is round thee of the race that rear’d
Thy walls; and thou—their fate must soon be thine!
But when shall earth again exult to see
Visions divine like theirs renew’d in aught like thee?

XC.

Lone are thy pillars now—each passing gale
Sighs o’er them as a spirit’s voice, which moan’d
That loneliness, and told the plaintive tale
Of the bright synod once above them throned.
Mourn, graceful ruin! on thy sacred hill,
Thy gods, thy rites, a kindred fate have shared:
Yet art thou honour’d in each fragment still
That wasting years and barbarous hands had spared;
Each hallow’d stone, from rapine’s fury borne,
Shall wake bright dreams of thee in ages yet unborn.

XCI.

Yes! in those fragments, though by time defaced
And rude insensate conquerors, yet remains
All that may charm th’ enlighten’d eye of taste,
On shores where still inspiring freedom reigns.
As vital fragrance breathes from every part
Of the crush’d myrtle, or the bruisèd rose,
E’en thus th’ essential energy of art
There in each wreck imperishably glows![49]
The soul of Athens lives in every line,
Pervading brightly still the ruins of her shrine.

XCII.

Mark on the storied frieze the graceful train,
The holy festival’s triumphal throng,
In fair procession to Minerva’s fane,
With many a sacred symbol, move along.
There every shade of bright existence trace,
The fire of youth, the dignity of age;
The matron’s calm austerity of grace,
The ardent warrior, the benignant sage;
The nymph’s light symmetry, the chief’s proud mien—
Each ray of beauty caught and mingled in the scene.

XCIII.

Art unobtrusive there ennobles form,[50]
Each pure chaste outline exquisitely flows;
There e’en the steed, withhold expression warm,[51]
Is clothed with majesty, with being glows.
One mighty mind hath harmonised the whole;
Those varied groups the same bright impress bear;
One beam and essence of exalting soul
Lives in the grand, the delicate, the fair;
And well that pageant of the glorious dead
Blends us with nobler days, and loftier spirits fled.

XCIV.

O conquering Genius! that couldst thus detain
The subtle graces, fading as they rise,
Eternalise expression’s fleeting reign,
Arrest warm life in all its energies,
And fix them on the stone—thy glorious lot
Might wake ambition’s envy, and create
Powers half divine: while nations are forgot,
A thought, a dream of thine hath vanquish’d fate!
And when thy hand first gave its wonders birth,
The realms that hail them now scarce claim’d a name on earth.

XCV.

Wert thou some spirit of a purer sphere
But once beheld, and never to return?
No—we may hail again thy bright career,
Again on earth a kindred fire shall burn!
Though thy least relics, e’en in ruin, bear
A stamp of heaven, that ne’er hath been renew’d—
A light inherent—let not man despair:
Still be hope ardent, patience unsubdued;
For still is nature fair, and thought divine,
And art hath won a world in models pure as thine.[52]

XCVI.

Gaze on yon forms, corroded and defaced—
Yet there the germ of future glory lies!
Their virtual grandeur could not be erased;
It clothes them still, though veil’d from common eyes.
They once were gods and heroes[53]—and beheld
As the blest guardians of their native scene;
And hearts of warriors, sages, bards, have swell’d
With awe that own’d their sovereignty of mien.
Ages have vanish’d since those hearts were cold,
And still those shatter’d forms retain their godlike mould.

XCVII.