Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (202 page)
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Authors: Homer,William Shakespeare
A kind of change came in my fate,
300
My keepers grew compassionate;
I know not what had made them so,
They were inured to sights of woe,
But so it was: — my broken chain
With links unfasten’d did remain,
305
And it was liberty to stride
Along my cell from side to side,
And up and down, and then athwart,
And tread it over every part;
And round the pillars one by one,
310
Returning where my walk begun,
Avoiding only, as I trod,
My brothers’ graves without a sod;
For if I thought with heedless tread
My steps profaned their lowly bed,
315
My breath came gaspingly and thick,
And my crush’d heart fell blind and sick.
I made a footing in the wall,
It was not therefrom to escape,
For I had buried one and all
320
Who loved me in a human shape;
And the whole earth would henceforth be
A wider prison unto me:
No child, no sire, no kin had I,
No partner in my misery;
325
I thought of this, and I was glad,
For thought of them had made me mad;
But I was curious to ascend
To my barr’d windows, and to bend
Once more, upon the mountains high,
330
The quiet of a loving eye.
I saw them — and they were the same.
They were not changed like me in frame;
I saw their thousand years of snow
On high — their wide long lake below,
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And the blue Rhone in fullest flow;
I heard the torrents leap and gush
O’er channell’d rock and broken bush;
I saw the white-wall’d distant town,
And whiter sails go skimming down;
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And then there was a little isle,
Which in my very face did smile,
The only one in view;
A small green isle, it seem’d no more,
Scarce broader than my dungeon floor,
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But in it there were three tall trees,
And o’er it blew the mountain breeze,
And by it there were waters flowing,
And on it there were young flowers growing
Of gentle breath and hue.
350
The fish swam by the castle wall,
And they seem’d joyous each and all;
The eagle rode the rising blast,
Methought he never flew so fast
As then to me he seem’d to fly;
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And then new tears came in my eye,
And I felt troubled and would fain
I had not left my recent chain.
And when I did descend again,
The darkness of my dim abode
360
Fell on me as a heavy load;
It was as is a new-dug grave,
Closing o’er one we sought to save;
And yet my glance, too much opprest,
Had almost need of such a rest.
365
It might be months, or years, or days —
I kept no count, I took no note,
I had no hope my eyes to raise,
And clear them of their dreary mote.
At last men came to set me free;
370
I ask’d not why, and reck’d not where,
It was at length the same to me,
Fetter’d or fetterless to be,
I learn’d to love despair.
And thus when they appear’d at last,
375
And all my bonds aside were cast,
These heavy walls to me had grown
A hermitage — and all my own!
And half I felt as they were come
To tear me from a second home:
380
With spiders I had friendship made,
And watch’d them in their sullen trade,
Had seen the mice by moonlight play,
And why should I feel less than they?
We were all inmates of one place,
385
And I, the monarch of each race,
Had power to kill — yet, strange to tell!
In quiet we had learn’d to dwell —
My very chains and I grew friends,
So much a long communion tends
390
To make us what we are: — even I
Regain’d my freedom with a sigh.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788–1824)
ETERNAL SPIRIT of the chainless Mind!
Brightest in dungeons, Liberty, thou art, —
For there thy habitation is the heart —
The heart which love of Thee alone can bind;
And when thy sons to fetters are consign’d,
5
To fetters, and the damp vault’s dayless gloom,
Their country conquers with their martyrdom,
And Freedom’s fame finds wings on every wind.
Chillon! thy prison is a holy place
And thy sad floor an altar, for ’twas trod,
10
Until his very steps have left a trace
Worn as if thy cold pavement were a sod,
By Bonnivard! May none those marks efface!
For they appeal from tyranny to God.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Song of Saul Before His Last Battle
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788–1824)
WARRIORS and chiefs! should the shaft or the sword
Pierce me in leading the host of the Lord,
Heed not the corse, though a king’s in your path:
Bury your steel in the bosoms of Gath!
Thou who art bearing my buckler and bow,
5
Should the soldiers of Saul look away from the foe,
Stretch me that moment in blood at thy feet!
Mine be the doom which they dared not to meet.
Farewell to others, but never we part,
Heir to my royalty, son of my heart!
10
Bright is the diadem, boundless the sway,
Or kingly the death, which awaits us to-day!
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788–1824)
THE ISLES of Greece! the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,
Where Delos rose, and Phœbus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
5
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
10
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,
15
I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
For standing on the Persians’ grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.
A king sate on the rocky brow
Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
20
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,
25
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?
30
’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?
35
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!
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Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thermopylæ!
What, silent still? and silent all?
Ah! no; — the voices of the dead
Sound like a distant torrent’s fall,
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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!
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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;
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Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?
Of two such lessons, why forget
The nobler and the manlier one?
You have the letters Cadmus gave —
Think ye he meant them for a slave?
60
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
We will not think of themes like these!
It made Anacreon’s song divine:
He served — but served Polycrates —
A tyrant; but our masters then
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Were still, at least, our countrymen.
The tyrant of the Chersonese
Was freedom’s best and bravest friend;
That
tyrant was Miltiades!
O that the present hour would lend
70
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
75
Such as the Doric mothers bore;
And there, perhaps, some seed is sown,
The Heracleidan blood might own.
Trust not for freedom to the Franks —
They have a king who buys and sells;
80
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!
85
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.
90
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 —
95
Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788–1824)
‘TIS time this heart should be unmoved,
Since others it hath ceased to move:
Yet, though I cannot be beloved,
Still let me love!
My days are in the yellow leaf;
5
The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone!
The fire that on my bosom preys
Is lone as some volcanic isle;
10
No torch is kindled at its blaze —
A funeral pile.
The hope, the fear, the jealous care,
The exalted portion of the pain
And power of love, I cannot share,
15
But wear the chain.
But ’tis not
thus
— and ’tis not
here —
Such thoughts should shake my soul, nor
now,
Where glory decks the hero’s bier,
Or binds his brow.
20
The sword, the banner, and the field,
Glory and Greece, around me see!
The Spartan, borne upon his shield,
Was not more free.
Awake! (not Greece — she
is
awake!)
25
Awake, my spirit! Think through
whom
Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake,
And then strike home!
Tread those reviving passions down,
Unworthy manhood! — unto thee
30
Indifferent should the smile or frown
Of beauty be.
If thou regret’st thy youth,
why live?
The land of honourable death
Is here: — up to the field, and give
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Away thy breath!
Seek out — less often sought than found —
A soldier’s grave, for thee the best;
Then look around, and choose thy ground,
And take thy rest.
AT MISSOLONGHI,
January
22, 1824.
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List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order