A voice from Scio's isle,

A voice as deep hath risen again
As far shall peal its thrilling strain,
Where'er our sun may smile!

Let not its tones expire!

Such power to waken earth and heaven,
And might and vengeance ne'er was given
To mortal song or lyre!

Know ye not whence it comes?

-From ruined hearths, from burning fanes,
From kindred blood on yon red plains,
From desolated homes!

'Tis with us through the night!
'Tis on our hills, 'tis in our sky-

Hear it, ye heavens! when swords flash high,
O'er the mid-waves of fight!

IV. THE SPARTANS' MARCH.'

The Spartans used not the trumpet in their march into battle," says Thucydides, "because they wished not to excite the rage of the warriors. Their charging-step was made to the 'Dorian mood of flutes and soft recorders.' The valor of a Spartan was too highly tempered to require a stunning or a rousing impulse. His spirit was like a steed too proud for the CAMPBELL on the Elegiac Poetry of the Greeks.

spur.

'TWAS morn upon the Grecian hills,
Where peasants dressed the vines;
Sunlight was on Citharon's rills,
Arcadia's rocks and pines.

And brightly, through his reeds and flowers,
Eurotas wandered by,

When a sound arose from Sparta's towers
Of solemn harmony.

Was it the hunters' choral strain

To the woodland-goddess poured?

Did virgin hands in Pallas' fane
Strike the full-sounding chord?

But helms were glancing on the stream,
Spears ranged in close array,

And shields flung back a glorious beam
To the morn of a fearful day!

1 Originally published in the Edinburgh Magazine.

And the mountain-echoes of the land
Swelled through the deep blue sky;
While to soft strains moved forth a band
Of men that moved to die.

They marched not with the trumpet's blast,
Nor bade the horn peal out,

And the laurel groves, as on they passed,
Rung with no battle shout!

They asked no clarion's voice to fire
Their souls with an impulse high;

But the Dorian reed and the Spartan lyre
For the sons of liberty!

And still sweet flutes, their path around,
Sent forth Æolian breath;
They needed not a sterner sound
To marshal them for death!

So moved they calmly to their field,
Thence never to return,

Save bearing back the Spartan shield,
Or on it proudly borne!

V. THE URN AND SWORD.

THEY sought for treasures in the tomb,
Where gentler hands were wont to spread
Fresh boughs and flowers of purple bloom,
And sunny ringlets, for the dead.1

They scattered far the greensward heap,

Where once those hands the bright wine poured; -What found they in the home of sleep?

A mouldering urn, a shivered sword!

An urn, which held the dust of one

Who died when hearths and shrines were free;
A sword, whose work was proudly done
Between our mountains and the sea.

And these are treasures!-undismayed,
Still for the suffering land we trust,
Wherein the past its fame hath laid,
With freedom's sword, and valor's dust.

1 See Potter's Grecian Antiquities, ii. 234.

VI. THE MYRTLE BOUGH.

STILL green, along our sunny shore,
The flowering myrtle waves,
As when its fragrant boughs of yore
Were offered on the graves-
The graves, wherein our mighty men
Had rest, unviolated then.

Still green it waves! as when the hearth
Was sacred through the land;
And fearless was the banquet's mirth,
And free the minstrel's hand;

And guests, with shining myrtle crowned,
Sent the wreathed lyre and wine-cup round.

Still green, as when on holy ground
The tyrant's blood was poured:
Forget ye not what garlands bound
The young deliverer's sword!

Though earth may shroud Harmodius now,
We still have sword and myrtle bough!

ELYSIUM.

["In the Elysium of the ancients, we find none but heroes and persons, who had either been for tunate or distinguished on earth; the children, and apparently the slaves and lower classes, that is to say, Poverty, Misfortune, and Innocence, were banished to the Infernal Regions." -CHATEAUBRIAND, Génie du Christianisme.]

FAIR wert thou in the dreams

Of elder time, thou land of glorious flowers
And summer winds and low-toned silvery streams,
Dim with the shadows of thy laurel bowers,
Where, as they passed, bright hours

Left no faint sense of parting, such as clings
To earthly love, and joy in loveliest things!
Fair wert thou, with the light

On thy blue hills and sleepy waters cast,
From purple skies ne'er deepening into night,
Yet soft, as if each moment were their last

Of glory, fading fast

Along the mountains!—but thy golden day
Was not as those that warn us of decay.

And ever, through thy shades,

A swell of deep Æolian sound went by,
From fountain-voices in their secret glades,
And low reed-whispers, making sweet reply

To summer's breezy sigh,

And young leaves trembling to the wind's light breath,
Which ne'er had touched them with a hue of death!

And the transparent sky

Rung as a dome, all thrilling to the strain

Of harps that, 'midst the woods, made harmony
Solemn and sweet; yet troubling not the brain
With dreams and yearnings vain,

And dim remembrances, that still draw birth
From the bewildering music of the earth.

And who, with silent tread,

Moved o'er the plains of waving asphodel?
Called from the dim procession of the dead,
Who, 'midst the shadowy amaranth-bowers might dwell
And listen to the swell

Of those majestic hymn-notes, and inhale
The spirit wandering in the immortal gale?

They of the sword, whose praise,

With the bright wine at nations' feasts, went round!
They of the lyre, whose unforgotten lays

Forth on the winds had sent their mighty sound,

And in all regions found

Their echoes 'midst the mountains !-and become

In man's deep heart as voices of his home!

They of the daring thought!

Daring and powerful, yet to dust allied

Whose flight through stars, and seas, and depths, had sought The soul's far birth-place-but without a guide!

Sages and seers, who died,

And left the world their high mysterious dreams,
Born 'midst the olive woods, by Grecian streams.

But the most loved are they

Of whom fame speaks not with her clarion voice,
In regal halls!-the shades o'erhang their way,
The vale, with its deep fountains, is their choice,
And gentle hearts rejoice

Around their steps; till silently they die,
As a stream shrinks from summer's burning eye.
And these-of whose abode,

'Midst her green valleys, earth retained no trace,
Save a flower springing from their burial-sod,
A shade of sadness on some kindred face,

A dim and vacant place

In some sweet home;-thou hadst no wreaths for these,
Thou sunny land! with all thy deathless trees!

The peasant at his door

Might sink to die when vintage feasts were spread,

And songs on every wind! From thy bright shore
No lovelier vision floated round his head-

Thou wert for nobler dead!

He heard the bounding steps which round him fell,
And sighed to bid the festal sun farewell!

The slave, whose very tears

Were a forbidden luxury, and whose breast
Kept the mute woes and burning thoughts of years,
As embers in a burial-urn compressed;

He might not be thy guest!

No gentle breathings from thy distant sky
Came o'er his path, and whispered "Liberty!"

Calm, on its leaf-strewn bier,

Unlike a gift of Nature to Decay,

Too rose-like still, too beautiful, too dear,
The child at rest before the mother lay,

E'en so to pass away,

With its bright smile!-Elysium! what wert thou
To her, who wept o'er that young slumberer's brow?

Thou hadst no home, green land!
For the fair creature from her bosom gone,
With life's fresh flowers just opening in its hand,
And all the lovely thoughts and dreams unknown
Which, in its clear eye, shone

Like spring's first wakening! but that light was past—
Where went the dewdrop swept before the blast

Not where thy soft winds played,

Not where thy waters lay in glassy sleep!
Fade with thy bowers, thou Land of visions, fade!
From thee no voice came o'er the gloomy deep,
And bade man cease to weep!

Fade with the amaranth plain, the myrtle grove,

Which could not yield one hope to sorrowing love!1

1 The form of this poem was a good deal altered by Mrs. Hemans some years after its first publication, and, though done so perhaps to advantage, one verse was omitted. As originally written, the two following stanzas concluded the piece :

For the most loved are they

Of whom Fame speaks not with her clarion voice,
In regal halls! the shades o'erhang their way.
The vale, with its deep fountains, is their choice,
And gentle hearts rejoice

Around their steps; till silently they die,
As a stream shrinks from summer's burning eye.

And the world knows not then,

Not then, nor ever, what pure thoughts are fled!
Yet these are they, who on the souls of men

Come back, when night her folding veil hath spread,

The long-remembered dead!

But not with thee might aught save glory dwell-
Fade, fade away, thou shore of asphodel!