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HELLAS:

A LYRICAL DRAMA.

SCENE, a Terrace on the Seraglio.

MAHMUD (sleeping), an Indian Slave sitting beside his Couch.

CHORUS OF GREEK CAPTIVE WOMEN.
WE strew these opiate flowers

On thy restless pillow,

They were stripped from Orient bowers,
By the Indian billow.

Be thy sleep

Calm and deep,

Like theirs who fell-not ours who weep!

INDIAN.

Away, unlovely dreams!

Away, false shapes of sleep!

Be his, as Heaven seems,

Clear, and bright, and deep!

Soft as love, and calm as death,

Sweet as a summer night without a breath.

CHORUS.

Sleep, sleep! our song is laden

With the soul of slumber;

It was sung by a Samian maiden,
Whose lover was of the number

ΙΟ

Who now keep
That calm sleep

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Whence none may wake, where none shall weep.

INDIAN.

I touch thy temples pale!

I breathe my soul on thee! And could my prayers avail, All my joy should be

Dead, and I would live to weep,

So thou might'st win one hour of quiet sleep.

CHORUS.

Breathe low, low,

The spell of the mighty mistress now!
When Conscience lulls her sated snake,
And Tyrants sleep, let Freedom wake.
Breathe low-low-

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The words which, like secret fire, shall flow Through the veins of the frozen earth-low,

low!

SEMICHORUS I.

Life may change, but it may fly not;
Hope may vanish, but can die not;
Truth be veiled, but still it burneth;
Love repulsed,-but it returneth!

SEMICHORUS II.

Yet were life a charnel where
Hope lay coffined with Despair;
Yet were truth a sacred lie,

Love were lust

SEMICHORUS I.
If Liberty

Lent not life its soul of light,

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Hope its iris of delight,

Truth its prophet's robe to wear,
Love its power to give and bear.

CHORUS.

In the great morning of the world,
The spirit of God with might unfurled
The flag of Freedom over Chaos,

And all its banded anarchs fled,
Like vultures frighted from Imaus,
Before an earthquake's tread.-
So from Time's tempestuous dawn
Freedom's splendour burst and shone:-
Thermopyla and Marathon

Caught, like mountains beacon-lighted,
The springing Fire. The wingèd glory
On Philippi half-alighted,

Like an eagle on a promontory.
Its unwearied wings could fan
The quenchless ashes of Milan.
From age to age, from man to man,
It lived; and lit from land to land
Florence, Albion, Switzerland.

Then night fell; and, as from night,
Re-assuming fiery flight,

From the West swift Freedom came,

Against the course of Heaven and doom,

A second sun arrayed in flame,

To burn, to kindle, to illume.
From far Atlantis its young beams
Chased the shadows and the dreams.
France, with all her sanguine steams,

Hid, but quenched it not; again
Through clouds its shafts of glory rain
From utmost Germany to Spain.

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As an eagle fed with morning
Scorns the embattled tempests' warning,
When she seeks her aërie hanging

In the mountain-cedar's hair,
And her brood expect the clanging

Of her wings through the wild air,
Sick with famine:-Freedom, so
To what of Greece remaineth now
Returns; her hoary ruins glow
Like Orient mountains lost in day;
Beneath the safety of her wings
Her renovated nurslings prey,
And in the naked lightnings

Of truth they purge their dazzled eyes.
Let Freedom leave-where'er she flies,
A Desert, or a Paradise:

Let the beautiful and the brave

Share her glory, or a grave.

SEMICHORUS I.

With the gifts of gladness
Greece did thy cradle strew;

SEMICHORUS II.

With the tears of sadness

Greece did thy shroud bedew!

SEMICHORUS I.

With an orphan's affection

She followed thy bier through Time;

SEMICHORUS II.

And at thy resurrection

Re-appeareth, like thou, sublime!

SEMICHORUS I.

If Heaven should resume thee,

To Heaven shall her spirit ascend;

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