And stars unnumber'd o'er the orient shone,
Bright as that Pleïad, sphered in Mecca's fane.
From Bagdat’s palaces the choral strains
Rose and re-echoed to the desert's bound,
And Science, woo'd on Egypt's burning plains,
Rear'd her majestic head with glory crown'd;

And the wild Muses breathed romantic lore From Syria's palmy groves to Andalusia's shore.

There is a murmuring stillness on the trajn
Thronging the midnight streets, at morn to die;
And to the cross, in fair Sophia's fane,
For the last time is raised Devotion's eye;

And, in his heart while faith's bright visions rise, There kneels the high-soul'd prince, the summond

of the skies.

XXXVIII.

XXXV.

Those years have past in radiance—they have

past, As sinks the daystar in the tropic main; His parting beams no soft reflection cast, They burn-are quench'd—and deepest shadows

reign. And Fame and Science have not left a trace In the vast regions of the Moslem's power, — Regions, to intellect a desert space, A wild without a fountain or a flower, Where towers Oppression midst the deepening

glooms, As dark and lone ascends the cypress midst the

tombs.

XXXVI.

Alas for thee, fair Greece ! when Asia pour'd
Her fierce fanatics to Byzantium's wall;
When Europe sheath’d, in apathy, her sword,
And heard unmoved the fated city's call.
No bold crusaders ranged their serried line
Of spears and banners round a falling throne;
And thou, O last and noblest Constantine ! 2
Didst meet the storm unshrinking and alone.

Oh ! blest to die in freedom, though in vainThino empire's proud exchange the grave, and

not the chain !

Then, Greece !the tempest rose that burston thee, Land of the bard, the warrior, and the sage ! Oh! where were then thy sons, the great, the free, Whose deeds are guiding stars from age to age ? Though firm thy battlements of crags and snows, And bright the memory of thy days of pride, In mountain might though Corinth's fortressrose, On, unresisted, rolld th' invading tide!

Oh ! vain the rock, the rampart, and the tower, If Freedom guard them not with Mind's uncon

quer'd power.

XL.

5

XXXVII.

Hush'd is Byzantium-'tis the dead of night,
The closing night of that imperial race !3
And all is vigil—but the eye of light
Shall soon unfold, a wilder scene to trace :

Where were th' avengers then, whose viewless

might Preserved inviolate their awful fane," When through the steep defiles, to Delphi's

height, In martial splendour pour'd the Persian's train ? Then did those mighty and mysterious Powers, Arm'd with the elements, to vengeance wake, Call the dread storms to darken round their

1 “ Sept des plus fameux parmi les anciens poetes Arabiques sont désignés par les écrivains orientaux sous le nom de Pleiade Arabique, et leurs ouvrages étaient suspendus autour de la Caaba, ou Mosque de la Mecque."-SISMONDI, Littérature du Midi.

2 « The distress and fall of the last Constantine are more glorious than the long prosperity of the Byzantine Cæsars.”— GIBBON'S Decline and Fall, &c. vol. xii. p. 226.

3 See the description of the night previous to the taking of Constantinople by Mahomet II.--GIBbon's Decline and Fall, &c. vol. xii.

p.

225.

Ye slept, O heroes ! chief ones of the earth !3
High demigods of ancient days ! ye slept :
There lived no spark of your ascendant worth
When o'er your land the victor Moslem swept.
No patriot then the sons of freedom led,
In mountain pass devotedly to die;
The martyr-spirit of resolve was fled,
And the high soul's unconquer'd buoyancy;

And by your graves, and on your battle-plains, Warriors ! your children knelt to wear the stran

ger's chains.

XLIII.

Nowhaveyourtrophies vanish’d, and your homes Are moulder'd from the earth, while scarce

remain E'en the faint traces of the ancient tombs That mark where sleep the slayers or the slain. Your deeds are with the days of glory flown, The lyres are hush'd that swell’d your fame afar, The halls that echo'd to their sounds are gone, Perish'd the conquering weapons of your war;*

Lo, where th’ Albanian spreads his despot sway
O'er Thessaly's rich vales and glowing plains,
Whose sons in sullen abjectness obey,
Nor lift the hand indignant at its chains :
Oh ! doth the land that gave Achilles birth,
And many a chief of old illustrious line,
Yield not one spirit of unconquer'd worth
To kindle those that now in bondage pine ?

No ! on its mountain-air is slavery's breath, And terror chills the hearts whose utter'd plaints were death.

XLVI. Yet if thy light, fair Freedom, rested there, How rich in charms were that romantic clime, With streams, and woods, and pastoral valleys

fair, And wall'd with mountains, haughtily sublime ! Heights that might well be deem'd the Muses'

reign, Since, claiming proud alliance with the skies, They lose in loftier spheres their wild domainMeet home for those retired divinities

That love,where nought of earth may e'erintrude, Brightly to dwell on high, in lonely sanctitude.

XLVII.

There in rude grandeur daringly ascends
Stern Pindus, rearing many a pine-clad height;
He with the clouds his bleak dominion blends,
Frowning o'er vales in woodland verdure bright.
Wild and august in consecrated pride,
There through the deep-blue heaven Olympus

towers,
Girdled with mists, light-floating as to hide
The rock-built palace of immortal powers;

1 For several interesting particulars relative to the Suliote warfare with Ali Pasha, see Holland's Travels in Albania.

2 “ It is related, as an authentic story, that a group of Suliote women assembled on one of the precipices adjoining the modern seraglio, and threw their infants into the chasm below, that they might not become the slaves of the enemy. -HOLLAND's Travels, &c.

There the rose-laurels still in beauty wave, And a frail shrub survives to bloom o'er Sparta's

grave.

Yet bright on carth 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 !1

O lofty mother of heroic worth, How couldst thou live to bring a meaner offspring

forth?

LIX.

LVI.

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 songand bard are fled, And all that round us blooms is blooming o'er the

dead.

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.

LX.

LVII.

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 ;3
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.4

LXI.

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.

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 5—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,

LVIII.

Taygetus 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 Risc as of old, when hail'd by classic strain ;

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 delland 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 !

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,
Andwondering ask, if these theirscenes could be!

Search for the classic fane, the regal tomb,
And find the mosquealone—a record of their doom!

LXVIII.