Selected Poems (117 page)

What mortal his own doom may guess? –

Let none despond, let none despair!

855

To-morrow the Borysthenes

May see our coursers graze at ease

Upon his Turkish bank, – and never

Had I such welcome for a river

As I shall yield when safely there.

860

Comrades, good night!’ – The Hetman threw

His length beneath the oak-tree shade,

With leafy couch already made,

A bed nor comfortless nor new

To him, who took his rest whene’er

865

The hour arrived, no matter where:

His eyes the hastening slumbers steep.

And if ye marvel Charles forgot

To thank his tale,
he
wonder’d not, –

The king had been an hour asleep.

Stanzas to the Po

I

River, that rollest by the ancient walls,

Where dwells the lady of my love, when she

Walks by thy brink, and there perchance recalls

A faint and fleeting memory of me;

II

5

What if thy deep and ample stream should be

A mirror of my heart, where she may read

The thousand thoughts I now betray to thee,

Wild as thy wave, and headlong as thy speed!

III

What do I say — a mirror of my heart?

10

Are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong?

Such as my feelings were and are, thou art;

And such as thou art were my passions long.

IV

Time may have somewhat tamed them, — not for ever;

Thou overflow’st thy banks, and not for aye

15

Thy bosom overboils, congenial river!

Thy floods subside, and mine have sunk away.

V

But left long wrecks behind, and now again,

Borne in our old unchanged career we move;

Thou tendest wildly onwards to the main,

20

And I — to loving
one
I should not love.

VI

The current I behold will sweep beneath

Her native walls and murmur at her feet;

Her eyes will look on thee, when she shall breathe

The twilight air, unharm’d by summer’s heat.

VII

25

She will look on thee, — I have look’d on thee,

Full of that thought; and, from that moment, ne’er

Thy waters could I dream of, name, or see,

Without the inseparable sigh for her!

VIII

Her bright eyes will be imaged in thy stream, —

30

Yes! they will meet the wave I gaze on now:

Mine cannot witness, even in a dream,

That happy wave repass me in its flow!

IX

The wave that bears my tears returns no more:

Will she return by whom that wave shall sweep? —

35

Both tread thy banks, both wander on thy shore,

I by thy source, she by the dark-blue deep.

X

But that which keepeth us apart is not

Distance, nor depth of wave, nor space of earth,

But the distraction of a various lot,

40

As various as the climates of our birth.

XI

A stranger loves the lady of the land,

Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood

Is all meridian, as if never fann’d

By the black wind that chills the polar flood.

XII

45

My blood is all meridian; were it not,

I had not left my clime, nor should I be,

In spite of tortures, ne’er to be forgot,

A slave again of love, — at least of thee.

XIII

’Tis vain to struggle — let me perish young —

50

Live as I lived, and love as I have loved;

To dust if I return, from dust I sprung,

And then, at least, my heart can ne’er be moved.

The Isles of Greece

1

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!

5

Eternal summer gilds them yet,

But all, except their sun, is set.

2

The Scian and the Teian muse,

The hero’s harp, the lover’s lute,

Have found the fame your shores refuse:

10

Their place of birth alone is mute

To sounds which echo further west

Than your sires’ ‘Islands of the Blest.’

3

The mountains look on Marathon —

And Marathon looks on the sea;

15

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.

4

A king sate on the rocky brow

20

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?

5

25

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,

30

Degenerate into hands like mine?

6

’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;

35

For what is left the poet here?

For Greeks a blush – for Greece a tear.

7

Must
we
but weep o’er days more blest?

Must
we
but blush? – Our fathers bled.

Earth! render back from out thy breast

40

A remnant of our Spartan dead!

Of the three hundred grant but three,

To make a new Thermopylae!

8

What, silent still? and silent all?

Ah! no; – the voices of the dead

45

Sound 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.

9

In vain – in vain: strike other chords;

50

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!

10

55

You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet;

Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?

Of two such lessons, why forget

The nobler and the manlier one?

You have the letters Cadmus gave –

60

Think ye he meant them for a slave?

11

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 –

65

A tyrant; but our masters then

Were still, at least, our countrymen.

12

The tyrant of the Chersonese

Was freedom’s best and bravest friend;

That
tyrant was Miltiades!

70

Oh! that the present hour would lend

Another despot of the kind!

Such chains as his were sure to bind.

13

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!

On Suli’s rock, and Parga’s shore,

75

Exists the remnant of a line

Such as the Doric mothers bore;

And there, perhaps, some seed is sown,

The Heracleidan blood might own.

14

Trust not for freedom to the Franks –

80

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.

15

85

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,

90

To think such breasts must suckle slaves.

16

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:

95

A land of slaves shall ne’er be mine –

Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!