The Siege of Valencia; The Last Constantine: with Other Poems/The Tombs of Platæa
THE TOMBS OF PLATÆA.
FROM A PAINTING BY WILLIAMS.
And there they sleep!—the men who stood
In arms before th' exulting sun,
And bathed their spears in Persian blood,
And taught the earth how freedom might be won.
They sleep!—th' Olympic wreaths are dead,
Th' Athenian lyres are hush'd and gone;
The Dorian voice of song is fled—
—Slumber, ye mighty! slumber deeply on!
They sleep, and seems not all around
As hallow'd unto glory's tomb?
Silence is on the battle ground,
The heavens are loaded with a breathless gloom.
And stars are watching on their height,
But dimly seen through mist and cloud,
And still and solemn is the light
Which folds the plain, as with a glimmering shroud.
And thou, pale night-queen! here thy beams
Are not as those the shepherd loves,
Nor look they down on shining streams,
By Naiads haunted, in their laurel groves:
Thou seest no pastoral hamlet sleep,
In shadowy quiet, midst its vines;
No temple gleaming from the steep,
Midst the grey olives, or the mountain pines:
But o'er a dim and boundless waste,
Thy rays, e'en like a tomb-lamp's, brood,
Where man's departed steps are traced
But by his dust, amidst the solitude.
And be it thus!—What slave shall tread
O'er freedom's ancient battle-plains?
Let deserts wrap the glorious dead,
When their bright land sits weeping o'er her chains:
Here, where the Persian clarion rung,
And where the Spartan sword flash'd high,
And where the Pæan strains were sung,
From year to year swell'd on by liberty!
Here should no voice, no sound, be heard,
Until the bonds of Greece be riven,
Save of the leader's charging word,
Or the shrill trumpet, pealing up through heaven!
Rest in your silent homes, ye brave!
No vines festoon your lonely tree*[1]!
No harvest o'er your war-field wave,
Till rushing winds proclaim—the land is free!
- ↑ * A single tree appears in Mr. Williams's impressive picture.