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EXTRACTS FROM DON JUAN.

THE ISLES OF GREECE.*

THE isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and cung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,-
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set.

The Scian and the Teian muse,

The hero's harp, the lover's lute,
Have found the fame your shores refuse;
Their place of birth alone is mute

To sounds which echo further west
Than your sires' "Islands of the Blest."+

The mountains look on Marathon-
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,

I dream'd that Greece might still be free;
For standing on the Persians' grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.

A king sat on the rocky brow

Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis;
And ships, by thousands, lay below,

And men in nations ;-all were his !
He counted them at break of day-
And when the sun set, where were they?

And where are they? and where art thou,
My country? On thy voiceless shore
The heroic lay is tuneless now-

The heroic bosom beats no more!
And must thy lyre, so long divine,
Degenerate into hands like mine?"

The Pieces following, to the end, are, from their great beauty and unobjectionabl aharacter, extracted from Don Juan.

+ The "Islands of the Blest," of the Greek poets were supposed to have been the Cage do Verd Islands or the Canaries.

"Deep were the groans of Xerxes, when he saw

This havoc; for his seat, a lofty mound

Commanding the wide sea, o'erlook'd the hosts.
With rueful cries he rent his royal robes,

And through his troops embattled on the shor
Gave signal of retreat; then started wild
And fled disorder'd."-ÆSCHYLUS.

"Tis something, in the dearth of fame.
Though link'd among a fetter'd race,
To feel at least a patriot's shame,

Even as I sing, suffuse my face;
For what is left the poet here?
For Greeks a blush-for Greece a tear.

Must we but weep o'er days more blest?
Must we but blush ?-Our fathers bled.
Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thermopyla!

What, silent still? and silent all?

Ah! no;-the voices of the dead Bound like a distant torrent's fall,

And answer, "Let one living head,
But one arise, we come, we come!
"Tis but the living who are dumb.

In vain-in vain; strike other chords;
Fill high the cup with Samian wine!
Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,

And shed the blood of Scio's vine!
Hark! rising to the ignoble call-
How answers each bold Bacchanal !

You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet,
Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?
Of two such lessons, why forget

The nobler and the raanlier one?
You have the letters Cadmus gave-
Think ye he meant them for a slave?

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
We will not think of themes like there!

It made Anacreon's song divine:

He served-but served Polycrates

A tyrant; but our masters then

Were still, at least, our countrymen.

The tyrant of the Chersonese

Was freedom's best and bravest friend That tyrant was Miltiades!

Oh! that the present hour would lend Another despot of the kind!

Such chains as his were sure to bind.

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
On Suli's rock, and Parga's shore,
Exists the remnant of a line

Such as the Doric mothers bore;
And there, perhaps, some seed is soWB,
The Heracleidan blood might own.

Trust not for freedom to the Franks-
They have a king who buys and sells :
In native swords, and native ranks,

The only hope of courage dwells;
But Turkish force and Latin fraud
Would break your shield, however broad.
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
Our virgins dance beneath the shade--
I see their glorious black eyes shine;
But gazing on each glowing maid,
My own the burning tear-drop laves,
To think such breasts must suckle slaves.
Place me on Sunium's marbled steep,

Where nothing save the waves and I,
May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;
There, swan-like, let me sing and die :
A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine-
Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!

FAME.

WHAT is the end of Fame! "Tis but to fill
A certain portion of uncertain paper:

Some liken it to climbing up a hill,

Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in vapour;

For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill,

And bards burn what they call their "midnight taper,"

To have, when the original is dust,

A name, a wretched picture, and worse bust.

What are the hopes of man? Old Egypt's King
Cheops erected the first pyramid

And largest, thinking it was just the thing

To keep his memory whole, and mummy hid;

But somebody or other rummaging

Burglariously broke his coffin's lid;

Let not a monument give you or me hopes,
Since not a pinch of dust remains of Cheops.

THE SHIPWRECK.

THE wind

Increased at night, until it blew a gale;

And though 'twas not much to a naval mind,
Some landsmen' would have look'd a little pale,

For sailors are, in fact, a different kind :

At sunset they began to take in sail,

For the sky show'd it would come on to blow,
And carry away, perhaps, a mast or so.

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