11. Selictar!* unsheath then our chief's scimitar: Tambourgi! thy 'larum gives promise of war. Ye e mountains that see us descend to the shore! Shall view us as victors, or view us no more! LXXIII. Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth!33 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 straitOh! who that gallant spirit shall resume, Leap from Eurotas' banks, and call thee from the tomb? *Sword-bearer. LXXIV. Spirit of freedom! when on Phyle's brow Thou sat'st with Thrasybulus and his train,on on #f 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, T From birth till death enslav'd; in word, in deed unmann'd. LXXV. In all save form alone, how chang'd! and who 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, T Or tear their name defil'd from Slavery's mournful page. LXXVI. Hereditary bondsmen! know ye not 1 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!! $ 1 1 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 shamefu LXXVII. The city won for Allah from the Giaour, The Giaour from Othman's race again may wrest; Receive the fiery Frank, her former guest; On Wuhab's rebel brood who dared divest 36 The prophet's tomb of all its pious spoil, 35 May wind their path of blood along the West'; But ne'er will freedom seek this fated soil, T I 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, 11 To shrive from man his weight of mortal sin, By daily abstinence and nightly prayer; in buf But ere his sackcloth garb Repentance wear, wear, 1 Some days of joyaunce are decreed to all, bлA To take of pleasaunce each his secret share, In motley robe to dance at masking ball, food A And join the mimic train of merry Carnival.q thi LXXIX. And whose more rife with merriment than thine, Nor oft I've seen such sight, nor heard such song, As woo'd the eye and thrill'd the Bosphorus along. LXXX. Loud was the lightsome tumult of the shore, The Queen of tides on high consenting shone, And when a transient breeze swept o'er the wave, 'Twas—as if darting from her heavenly throne, Till sparkling billows seem'd to light the banks they lave. LXXXI. Glanc'd many a light caique along the foam, A These hours, and only these, redeem Life's years of ill! |