Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 3.djvu/123

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THE GIAOUR.
91
But beauty with that fearful bloom,
That hue which haunts it to the tomb,
Expression's last receding ray,
A gilded Halo hovering round decay,
The farewell beam of Feeling past away!100
Spark of that flame, perchance of heavenly birth,
Which gleams, but warms no more its cherished earth!

Clime of the unforgotten brave![decimal 1]
Whose land from plain to mountain-cave
Was Freedom's home or Glory's grave!
Shrine of the mighty! can it be,[lower-roman 1]
That this is all remains of thee?
Approach, thou craven crouching slave:[decimal 2]
Say, is not this Thermopylæ?[lower-roman 2]
These waters blue that round you lave,—110
Oh servile offspring of the free—
Pronounce what sea, what shore is this?
The gulf, the rock of Salamis!
These scenes, their story not unknown,
Arise, and make again your own;
Snatch from the ashes of your Sires
The embers of their former fires;

Variants

  1. Fountain of Wisdom! can it be.—[MS. erased.]
  2. Why is not this Thermopylæ
    These waters blue that round you lave
    Degenerate offspring of the free—
    How name ye them that shore is this?
    The wave, the rock of Salamis?
    —[MS.]

Notes

  1. [From hence to the conclusion of the paragraph, the MS. is written in a hurried and almost illegible hand, as if these splendid lines had been poured forth in one continuous burst of poetic feeling, which would hardly allow time for the pen to follow the imagination.—(Note to Edition 1837. The lines were added to the Second Edition.)]
  2. [Compare—
    "Son of the Morning, rise I approach you here!"
    Childe Harold, Canto II. stanza iii. line i.]