Blackwood's Magazine/Volume 1/Issue 2/Greece

GREECE.

From the French of Ardans.

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(Almanack des Muses, pour 1815.)

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1.

Led by the light of bards of yore

The minstrel seeks Illissus' shore;
Like them inspired with holy rage
That Greece, erewhile so great and sage,
Greece, lovely still—his footsteps tread;
And, O!—though cold and silent now,
He feels that land still strong to bow
The pilgrim's heart with reverential dread!

2.

But where are they—the Men of yore—

Whose deeds of fame that may not die,
Bade rise upon their native shore
The home of holy Liberty?—
O! rouse Ye at my voice of pain!
O! rise and look on Græcia now!
Reft of the gifts Ye gave—in vain,
The servile neck behold her bow,
And hug, with trembling hand, the chain
The Tartar binds around her brow!

3.

Oh! bowed to earth—and crushed—and lone—

Greece to my pensive eye appears
—A widow desolate, with quenchless tears
Weeping her gods and all her heroes gone!
Alas! o'er all this lovely clime—
In heart and soul by slavery wrung,
The dastard sons of sires sublime
Scarce know the land whereon they sprung;
And feel—of all its glories gone,
Or weak regret—or memory none!

4.

Greece—Greece—alas! is all entombed—

And all that fired, and blessed, and bloomed,
Survive but in her ashes now!
And only strangers sorrow there
O'er ills—the deadliest—lands must bear
Where tyrants reign and bondsmen bow!
Yes! on these plains—of yore so blest,—
Where sleep in death's unbroken rest
The hearts with Sparta's king that bled,—
Their rankling chains a race of slaves
Drag o'er a thousand heroes' graves,
Nor ever dream what dust they tread!

5.

But, ho!—the tomb's dark thraldom breaking.

At length, Immortal Slumberers, waking,
Arise—arise!—whose mighty story
Shall live while nature's self endures!—
O come arrayed in all your glory,
And Greece may live and yet be yours!
And, hark! the slave hath burst his chain,
And Triumph's raptures shares again!
New-born, he feels a Spartan's soul sublime,
And thrusts the Tartar from his sacred clime!

6.

But ah! in vain the voice of grief

Is raised where all is desolate!
No answering sound affords relief
To hearts that wail the wrongs of fate;
Death broods o'er these abandoned plains,
And horror's frozen silence reigns!
Alas! the dream that soothed his soul
Too fleetly fled die minstrel mourns;—
Alas! when past th' infernal goal
No demigod to earth returns!
And hark! while here my voice of woe
Is raised around their dwellings low—
Repeating many a hero's name
With Sparta's linked—or Athens' fame,—
A turbaned Turk with sacrilegious blow
Lays the last column of Minerva low!
J. F.